RE: Tamiya Toyota Hilux: Time For Tea?
Discussion
0836whimper said:
S4mb0x said:
tigerkoi said:
I was going to point out how cute the three Hilux bouncing down the hill together was at the 2:00 minute mark, but I think instead your write up has pulled at the heart strings a little bit more. A fascinating read, thank you for posting!Thank you.
If you've enjoyed the nostalgic ambling, then its my pleasure
Thinking about it all, I had a quick peek in the loft and realised my memory had failed me: over the years I'd accumulated one further car. A Kyosho. I think it's a Super Ten, but when I finally dig out the box, I'll be sure.
As a hobby it's utterly seductive regardless if you are a kid, or just a mechanically aware, petrol-head grown-up. If someone was to write a book on it all, they'd do worse than calling it something like, "The Dangers of Disposable Income and Sating Your Inner Manchild"....I do know wandering past 39 Parkway - Hobby Stores, Camden - my intrigue for what lies inside today (well, it's literally just closed for good) is the same, as when I used to wander in with my friends as a kid. Growing up though tends to mean a trade-off of sorts: lack of money (kid) for lack of time (adult).
All these recollections have me seriously tempted. I don't want to race it or anything but I'm pretty taken by the re-release of the 'classic' RC10. If I can square off a few hours to myself this Christmas I might just end up building this, and sourcing a nice plinth to rest it on. Ceteris paribus, of course...
furrywoolyhatuk said:
I still have a tamiya manta ray at my parents, think I want to dig it out.
Does anyone living in Surrey remember the track of the a3 at tolworth before it got turned into a goals centre?
Well here it is (or what's left of it)Does anyone living in Surrey remember the track of the a3 at tolworth before it got turned into a goals centre?
Might of accidentally brought another kit of ebay, stay tuned....
Dam this thread...
Neil E 99 said:
And they are sitting on a Atom.............................YUM!!!
I have a toy problem... my wife has given up now 
J4CKO said:
Was just watching some videos of the HPI Savage Brushless, seems they have got to the point where they are too powerful, will do a backflip from standstill if you arent careful, how come the brushless motors generate so much more power than the old style brushed ones ?
I really used to enjoy the optima mid Custom my brother had, with a road car body, I think somethign like that might be fun, I would prefer that it span excess power away rather than wheelying or flipping over, any suggestions for something like that, big power but more controllable ?
I took an old Savage nitro and converted it to brushless elecy (see top of page 6). I used the most powerful engine I could find that would take 6S lipo (just because!) and went from there. I extended the wheel base of the chassis, lowered the centre of gravity, extended the width of the suspension arms, along with a few other mods and...... it's absolutely mental. It makes the nitro look like a slow, kids toy. On tarmac, it doesn't just backflip from standstill, it'll backflip when you hit max power, while running around 40-50% throttle!! In the dirt, however, it's brilliant and will kick up a lot of mess as it claws for traction.I really used to enjoy the optima mid Custom my brother had, with a road car body, I think somethign like that might be fun, I would prefer that it span excess power away rather than wheelying or flipping over, any suggestions for something like that, big power but more controllable ?
The great thing about the Savage is it'll take a beating. Taking it down the BMX track and jumping it 6ft plus in the air it hilarious
Something like a truggy, rather than a full sized truck would be a bit more stable, I guess?
Great thread to read, in particular tigerkoi's post.
My obsession started with a trip to my Dad's bosses house when I was about 9 or 10; his lad, who was about 3 or 4 years older than me, had the perfect 80's kids bedroom, packed to the rafters with all the expensive toys of the day - Scalextric Le Mans set (with the 2x Porsche 934's), Amstrad CPC 128 and Atari ST, huge ghetto blaster, Mongoose Supergoose BMX etc. He also had a Tamiya Frog, which I didn't get to see running (Part of my dad's 'It's too expensive to buy you one for Christmas' speech to me was that it cost £££ and the batteries lasted 7 minutes on a full charge). Compared to my Chinese made RC car that just went forward and reverse (it turned left in reverse to give some semblance of steering), the Frog looked awesome and I had to get my hands on a Tamiya machine at some point. My obsession wasn't helped by the fact that kids game shows like Fun House etc. used to have Tamiya cars as prizes (Grotbags used to give away a Tamiya Thundershot every week it seemed in the Pink Windmill show!)
I had been badgering my parents for what felt like most of the end of the eighties for a Tamiya R/C but as Xmas came and one did not appear under the tree, I gave up and moved on. So it was a complete surprise when the for my 13th birthday in August '91, we went to Penn Models near Kingswinford (is it still there?) and they got me a Manta Ray. The caveat was that I would have to save up for the radio gear myself! By Xmas, I had most of the money saved and so a Futaba Attack Sport radio, fast charger and a Tamiya 1400Mah battery was mine. The first few weeks were awesome - save the time when the screw for the linkage to the steering servo fell out (I used the wrong one) while the car was about 70 metres away on a quiet cul-de-sac. Flat out heading away from me (well as flat out as a standard 540 motor can do), then turning left into someones front garden! Cue explanation to an elderly couple why I was rummaging through their flowerbed.
A mate bought a clearance stock Fire Dragon not long after, and we had great times racing them against each other in his road - spike tyres worn down to slicks in no time. The Manta Ray was supposed to be the basis for Tamiya's assault on the racing scene so even in stock form it cornered well compared to the FD, but it was fragile as hell - I seem to remember reading in Radio Race Car and the other mags of the time that Jamie Booth's works Manta Ray ran lots of aftermarket bits to make it competitive. Tamiya never seemed to make cars that were built for racing unlike Losi, Schumacher etc; you could spend an arm and a leg hopping them up, but out of the box against a Cat or similar they were fairly hopeless.
I quickly broke the plastic motor mount after sliding sideways into the kerb, new RW racing one made from aluminium costing a few weeks garden mowing / pocket money! It never ran quite so well afterwards, probably because instead of stopping to go and pick the car up after hitting the kerb, I drove it back toward me with the motor hanging off and a loud grinding noise getting worse and worse...
It spent most of the time in bits in the next couple of years, and my mate and I bought a 2nd hand Clod Buster from a kid at school, which currently sits in my spare bedroom needing four new uprights, a new windscreen from me driving it into the tailpipe of my mums Sierra on the drive, and a good clean from about 20 years of dust.
I bought a new Alfa 155 and stripped the rest of the Manta Ray to put the radio gear in, but I've never run it - its been sat in the box since I bought it in '97, I just lost interest / was spending all my money on cars / beer / girls etc.
I'll never sell or throw any of them away though - one day I'll find the time to rebuild them all!
My obsession started with a trip to my Dad's bosses house when I was about 9 or 10; his lad, who was about 3 or 4 years older than me, had the perfect 80's kids bedroom, packed to the rafters with all the expensive toys of the day - Scalextric Le Mans set (with the 2x Porsche 934's), Amstrad CPC 128 and Atari ST, huge ghetto blaster, Mongoose Supergoose BMX etc. He also had a Tamiya Frog, which I didn't get to see running (Part of my dad's 'It's too expensive to buy you one for Christmas' speech to me was that it cost £££ and the batteries lasted 7 minutes on a full charge). Compared to my Chinese made RC car that just went forward and reverse (it turned left in reverse to give some semblance of steering), the Frog looked awesome and I had to get my hands on a Tamiya machine at some point. My obsession wasn't helped by the fact that kids game shows like Fun House etc. used to have Tamiya cars as prizes (Grotbags used to give away a Tamiya Thundershot every week it seemed in the Pink Windmill show!)
I had been badgering my parents for what felt like most of the end of the eighties for a Tamiya R/C but as Xmas came and one did not appear under the tree, I gave up and moved on. So it was a complete surprise when the for my 13th birthday in August '91, we went to Penn Models near Kingswinford (is it still there?) and they got me a Manta Ray. The caveat was that I would have to save up for the radio gear myself! By Xmas, I had most of the money saved and so a Futaba Attack Sport radio, fast charger and a Tamiya 1400Mah battery was mine. The first few weeks were awesome - save the time when the screw for the linkage to the steering servo fell out (I used the wrong one) while the car was about 70 metres away on a quiet cul-de-sac. Flat out heading away from me (well as flat out as a standard 540 motor can do), then turning left into someones front garden! Cue explanation to an elderly couple why I was rummaging through their flowerbed.
A mate bought a clearance stock Fire Dragon not long after, and we had great times racing them against each other in his road - spike tyres worn down to slicks in no time. The Manta Ray was supposed to be the basis for Tamiya's assault on the racing scene so even in stock form it cornered well compared to the FD, but it was fragile as hell - I seem to remember reading in Radio Race Car and the other mags of the time that Jamie Booth's works Manta Ray ran lots of aftermarket bits to make it competitive. Tamiya never seemed to make cars that were built for racing unlike Losi, Schumacher etc; you could spend an arm and a leg hopping them up, but out of the box against a Cat or similar they were fairly hopeless.
I quickly broke the plastic motor mount after sliding sideways into the kerb, new RW racing one made from aluminium costing a few weeks garden mowing / pocket money! It never ran quite so well afterwards, probably because instead of stopping to go and pick the car up after hitting the kerb, I drove it back toward me with the motor hanging off and a loud grinding noise getting worse and worse...
It spent most of the time in bits in the next couple of years, and my mate and I bought a 2nd hand Clod Buster from a kid at school, which currently sits in my spare bedroom needing four new uprights, a new windscreen from me driving it into the tailpipe of my mums Sierra on the drive, and a good clean from about 20 years of dust.
I bought a new Alfa 155 and stripped the rest of the Manta Ray to put the radio gear in, but I've never run it - its been sat in the box since I bought it in '97, I just lost interest / was spending all my money on cars / beer / girls etc.
I'll never sell or throw any of them away though - one day I'll find the time to rebuild them all!
For anyone with an interest in old RC, check out this group on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/iconicrc/
Just hide your wallet.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/iconicrc/
Just hide your wallet.
backwoodsman said:
For anyone with an interest in old RC, check out this group on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/iconicrc/
Just hide your wallet.
Just don't checkout his Youtube videos... He drives a Monster Beetle for about 5 mins with a broken front balljoint thinking it is toe out. Face and palm.https://www.facebook.com/groups/iconicrc/
Just hide your wallet.
Jerry Can said:
I had a mitsubishi pajero,
but i really wanted the audi quattro that soxboy had.
Ha ha!! I'm sure there's still some bits of it in my parents garage if it's any consolation. but i really wanted the audi quattro that soxboy had.Re getting one as an adult, don't. There's a bloke in our park who takes his for a 'walk' and he's looked at in a very strange way.
soxboy said:
Re getting one as an adult, don't. There's a bloke in our park who takes his for a 'walk' and he's looked at in a very strange way.
Hyacinth Bucket syndrome?Good on that guy. He's obviously enough of an adult not to care what others think of his hobby. The people
that matter, who like him for the person he is, wont care either.
Personally I find that 9 times out of 10, the people who look down on such things are the ones who sit in front
of brain-rot TV every night while hoping that the neighbours have noticed that they have a newer car than they do.
Never turn down fun because you worry that others wont approve. That's just daft.
RC modelling takes many forms. Some just buy an off the shelf shiny kit and run it now and then. Some collect as many as they possibly can. Some get into heavy modifying or even engineering new designs from scratch. Personally I prefer the one custom vintage 1/8 model route.
Some people do this alone, while many share the RC experience with their kids. My Dad got me into technic Lego, which progressed into RC later on. We shared a lot of fun times building and running them. I'll be sharing RC with my little girl at some point soon too. Although I am sure I'll enjoy the screaming engine and billowing smoke more than her
Some people do this alone, while many share the RC experience with their kids. My Dad got me into technic Lego, which progressed into RC later on. We shared a lot of fun times building and running them. I'll be sharing RC with my little girl at some point soon too. Although I am sure I'll enjoy the screaming engine and billowing smoke more than her
Great thread. I raced a highly modified Tamiya Fox in the Tamiya national race series a long time ago aged around 10/11. Due to rule changes I then got hold of a Boomerang and had to run it standard. Lost interest immediately. Upon reflection, this has indeed had a real influence on my subsequent attitude towards cars...
The car to beat at the time in open races was the associated RC10. It still looks epic today. Might have to get my 10yr old one for Xmas
The car to beat at the time in open races was the associated RC10. It still looks epic today. Might have to get my 10yr old one for Xmas
I remember my older brother getting a Wild Willy for his 12th birthday back in the late 80's, then my Dad ended up visiting Japan for work, and returning with a Tamiya Pajero and Subaru Brat for myself, I don't think my Dad expected to suffer jet lag and having to build 2 cars up under duress.
Once I grew older, I then got a Black foot, whilst my brother got the Monster Beetle.
I was fortunate enough to then work in Japan in 2005/06, so treated myself to a V5 golf as something to build in my hotel room of any evening;
Once I grew older, I then got a Black foot, whilst my brother got the Monster Beetle.
I was fortunate enough to then work in Japan in 2005/06, so treated myself to a V5 golf as something to build in my hotel room of any evening;
Oh that takes me back
I'd a ta02 chassis at first with a Celica gt4 (4 headlight model) shell in red with 3 spoke wheels
Over time, gained updated motor, esc forward and brake only speed controller, fully ball raced, ball locking diffs, Grp chassis aluminium suspension arms, aluminum shocks. The works really. Cost me a fortune in my part time work days.
Always kept the tamiya
shell immaculate and got Kyoto evo 6, Audi a4 touring car and escort cosworth shells for actual racing.
My mate had a warsteiner bmw e36 which slays breast me simply because could afford the s super slick tyres lol
I'd a ta02 chassis at first with a Celica gt4 (4 headlight model) shell in red with 3 spoke wheels
Over time, gained updated motor, esc forward and brake only speed controller, fully ball raced, ball locking diffs, Grp chassis aluminium suspension arms, aluminum shocks. The works really. Cost me a fortune in my part time work days.
Always kept the tamiya
shell immaculate and got Kyoto evo 6, Audi a4 touring car and escort cosworth shells for actual racing.
My mate had a warsteiner bmw e36 which slays breast me simply because could afford the s super slick tyres lol
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