If you have been around this great hobby for a long while like I have you have seen a great many cool vehicles come and go. Some, that shall remain nameless, never really caught on or were poorly designed. Others had a huge fan following but their time simply ran out and they were superseded by newer and more modern vehicles. Luckily for those of us who feel some a achment to these older vehicles, manufacturers like Tamiya and Team Associated have made some of these old-school rides available again. Still, there are a few I’d love to see siting on a hobby shop shelf so I could have them once again. Here are my top five vehicles I wish would see the light of day just one more time.
There you have it, the five vehicles I’d like to see brought back. I am sure you have a vehicle or two you’d like to see brought back, too. We asked our Facebook followers and here are some of the responses we received. Click over to facebook.com/rcdriver to let us know what you think.
This was my very first vehicle. I remember going to Craftec Hobbies with my father in the winter of 1986 and seeing the red and black body with the words “Born To Be Wild” on the wing and I just knew I had to have it. The Falcon featured a tub chassis,
upper and lower control arm suspension on the front end and trailing arms in the back. In true 1980s Tamiya fashion it had a three-step forward and reverse mechanical speed control and 540 sized, sealed endbell motor.
In 1988 the JRX2 started showing up at tracks from coast to coast and when it was able to win races in complete box stock form it made other manufacturers step up their game. The JRX2 was the first widely produced vehicle to come with a carbon fiber graphite chassis, something other manufacturers quickly adopted. It came with a six- gear low rotating mass, LRM as they called it, transmission that placed the diff in the center of the gearbox, had a five-link trailing arm rear suspension and high traction Losi Naturals tires.
Way back in 1991, well before the Slash and T-Maxx vehicles were on the drawing board, Traxxas dabbled in top of the line off road racing vehicles. The TRX-1 made quite a splash when it qualified fourth at the 1991 IFMAR world championships and ultimately finished a respectable seventh. The TRX-1 has tall shock towers, long suspension arms and long Teflon coated shocks. This combination translated in to tons of suspension travel so it was able to easily navigate rough tracks that were the norm in the early 1990s. It had a very rigid single deck carbon fiber graphite chassis that made for a clean electronics layout and efficient three-gear transmission with ball diff.
Released in 1996 the RC10 DS or Dual Sport, was based on the super successful original RC10 off road buggy and featured the classic RC10 aluminum tub chassis that was anodized in black, it used the three-gear Stealth transmission, and had lowered shock towers, shorter shocks, smaller suspension, sway bars making it ideal for on road action. There were two- port version kits of the DS that included a body and mechanical speed control but one came with bearings and the other with bushings. The Team Kit for those that wanted to race came with bearings but lacked a body and all electrics. There was also a conversion kit for those who had an RC10 or RC10T.
Hitting the scene back in 1984, the Marui Big Bear is widely considered the first radio control monster truck even though it was only a 1/12-scale vehicle. It featured a hard plastic Datsun pickup truck body, tub style chassis, swing style live rear axle and independent front suspension that used coil-over style shocks that made for a very bouncy ride. The kit included Mabuchi M480-RS motor, mechanical ESC and chevron pattern tires. Unfortunately the odds of seeing this bad boy back in production are slim since Marui is hot and heavy into airsoft these days although they still make 1/24-scale military tanks.
Nicholas Proctor: Kyosho Javelin and Optima Mid
Gordon G Tinkous: Traxxas Bullet
Huffy Rules: How about the Mugen Bulldog?
Paul Andriukaitis: Kyosho Javelin…maybe even the Optima House Gold Edition.
Alex Kiger: Tyco Fast Traxx
Curtis Hooten: The Falcon
Images from vintagelosi.com and rcscrapyard.net
