This was Hardcore RC racing in 1983

[slick2500]

I missed out on so much of this hobby, I didn't get into it until 2015. But I jumped in head first and now have like 30 cars.

 

[SrC]

With the plane, you had to start it with your fingers on the Prop.. I sliced my fingers a few times. Scared the crap out me and never flew it again. It was a P51 chrome silver Plane. If I only had it today, I would probably still fly it for a laugh. I think they were considered too dangerous at some point.
I used to let it go and see how far it would fly without any Tether. I ate props alot. Easily found at a local toy shop. But the rest of the model was very durable. Dam that was dangerous when I think about that. Not a toy I would give my young child. I was like 7 or 8 yo at the time. No supervision. I had the Cox fuel and glo plugs with ignitor.

 

[Johnny b]

They had prop sticks out to kick over those motors and even springs to wind them up on certain models. I sliced up my fingers a few times. Those little glow fuel engines would sometimes run backwards. I remember that from my plane days. back then, safety was definitely not a priority.

 

[SrC]

Yeah I broke that wind up spring early on.
Now there are the motorized nose cone spinners to start them.

One of my favorites was a little red atc three wheeler powered by Cox fuel 049 motor. Had a little pull string start.

I remember that one too.

They had prop sticks out to kick over those motors and even springs to wind them up on certain models. I sliced up my fingers a few times. Those little glow fuel engines would sometimes run backwards. I remember that from my plane days. back then, safety was definitely not a priority.

Yeah Mine went backwards also.
Took me a while to figure out why. Left me dumbfounded as a young kid.

 

[305HemiGuy]

Wow, quite amazing to see how things were back in '83. Extra long antennas, no cell phones or laptops, no monster roosts being thrown lol. Interestingly enough, those cars look to be just as fast as today's Arrma Mega 550 rigs. I wasn't born in 1983, but I do remember the first r/c I ever owned. My dad bought me this yellow truck from radio shack. It had a 2-speed transmission with hi/low gearing and took a bunch of C batteries. Thing was friggin awesome. Man 1/16 sure does seem a lot bigger when you're 7 yrs old

 

[SrC]

Worked for toys r us for 13 years. I well remember selling tyco, & nikko. Those were some of the top RC's at that time. Broke easy and no replacement parts available.

Radio shack also had a big RC inventory. Where I got many of my Nicads. Some parts were replaceable. Their expensive ones.

Wow, quite amazing to see how things were back in '83. Extra long antennas, no cell phones or laptops, no monster roosts being thrown lol. Interestingly enough, those cars look to be just as fast as today's Arrma Mega 550 rigs. I wasn't born in 1983, but I do remember the first r/c I ever owned. My dad bought me this yellow truck from radio shack. It had a 2-speed transmission with hi/low gearing and took a bunch of C batteries. Thing was friggin awesome. Man 1/16 sure does seem a lot bigger when you're 7 yrs old

View attachment 305150

Wow that price was considered expensive IMHO. Only a 1/16th.

 

[Bustedaw11]

I still have quiet a few cox engines. I'll snap a pic later when I can dig them out of the shed.
Most ours had the recoil spring starter and I hated it! Get it almost wound up and the prop would slip out of your fingers and it'd spin around and bite the crap out of you!
This isn't my pic but this is the same pt-19 walmart sold and I had. Thus was mid 90s.

 

[BashingBrian]

Ahhh, those were the days, Leyland Sherpa van and a track full of early Tamiya's, looks like Rough Riders and Sand Scorchers..!!
Who remembers that big resistor or whatever it was that used to get super hot after you had used the car for 10 minutes..!!

I'll go back a bit further, I grew up with these Tamiya videos and owned the Ford Ranger XLT like in the video, ahh memories
They used to play them in the hobby shops back in the day, Tamiya had awesome marketing back then..!!

 

[305HemiGuy]

Ahhh, those were the days, Leyland Sherpa van and a track full of early Tamiya's, looks like Rough Riders and Sand Scorchers..!!
Who remembers that big resistor or whatever it was that used to get super hot after you had used the car for 10 minutes..!!

View attachment 305242

I'll go back a bit further, I grew up with these Tamiya videos and owned the Ford Ranger XLT like in the video, ahh memories
They used to play them in the hobby shops back in the day, Tamiya had awesome marketing back then..!!

That Ranger XLT looks pretty cool even by todays standards!

 

[oldguywnewtoy]

My brother and I had the Cox .049 Funny cars. They ran on a string, and were supposed to shut off at the end of the string. You'd start em by flippin' a rear wheel. IIRC, we set em loose in a parking lot, and they met their demise against curbs and lamp posts.

 

[Bustedaw11]

My brother and I had the Cox .049 Funny cars. They ran on a string, and were supposed to shut off at the end of the string. You'd start em by flippin' a rear wheel. IIRC, we set em loose in a parking lot, and they met their demise against curbs and lamp posts.

Thats how the pinto funny car is I have and top fuel. Theres a plate under them the strig would grab at the end and shut them down. No string no shut down= bad things happening
I've still got whats left of mine but they are missing some pieces after all these years. Still havnt gotten to where mine are to get pics but I will eventually

 

[Jerold]

Good stuff. To understand where we you have to know where you came from.

If you remember the '80s you weren't there, but they tell me I had fun. What I do recall is in the late '70s, early '80s I got an RC (remote controlled) Trans Am. It was and RTR (before they called them RTR) and it was very cool. It would be considered a toy grade RC these days. It had a long all metal antenna that would whip around. But it had two problems.

The first one is it took like something like 100 AA batteries. Ok maybe exaggerating a bit, but you would toss in a bunch of batteries and it would run for a about 10 mins.

The second problem is there were no replacement parts. If you crashed it just chuck it in the trash.

I don't recall exactly what happened to it, but I "think" it went back to the store after we did the math on the batteries.

Long before I had that I had the Matel VertiBird. This is a Remote Controlled vehicle vs the now Radio Controlled vehicle.

 

[Rowdyray]

As I said before, had a number of the Cox airplanes. Lots of crashes, cut fingers and rags thrown in to stop them running backwards. Lol. But who remembers these? This was my first foray into cars.

We started getting the shrikes and funny cars. (Even had several puddle jumper boats) Had so many .049's I got good at rebuilding and salvaging parts. Get enough running to have some fun! Then I got one of these. No brakes or throttle but, you could steer it. It was awesome! Ran it so much we wore out the first motor. Replaced it and my buddy lost control and sent it into the pond at the end of the road. Fried the electronics. Sad day.

 

[Jerold]

As I said before, had a number of the Cox airplanes. Lots of crashes, cut fingers and rags thrown in to stop them running backwards. Lol. But who remembers these? This was my first foray into cars.

We started getting the shrikes and funny cars. (Even had several puddle jumper boats) Had so many .049's I got good at rebuilding and salvaging parts. Get enough running to have some fun! Then I got one of these. No brakes or throttle but, you could steer it. It was awesome! Ran it so much we wore out the first motor. Replaced it and my buddy lost control and sent it into the pond at the end of the road. Fried the electronics. Sad day.

The Jeep reminds me of some car, pre-1980, that ran a pattern based on some "disc" you would insert into it. The "disc" would make it drive in a circle, figure 8's, a box or something. I can't for the life of me remember what it looked like but I do remember the little disc things.

 

[oldguywnewtoy]

Love seeing all this stuff again!

 

[Jerold]

Does anyone remember these?

 

[Bustedaw11]

Well I found a couple things in storage. Really bummed the pinto funny car is missing crap now.. I couldn't find my 0.49 engine collection. Just these 2.

 

[Armarookie43]

I was like 7 years old in 1983. I had a buggie from Sears when I was like 11 years old. Then I left the hobby and came back in 2019
If you start digging around in YT land, you can find very old RC related stuff like this. Way before 1983 :

Damn. The first RC related thing. Tesla was involved. I didn't even KnowAir that :

 

[SrC]

Ahhh, those were the days, Leyland Sherpa van and a track full of early Tamiya's, looks like Rough Riders and Sand Scorchers..!!
Who remembers that big resistor or whatever it was that used to get super hot after you had used the car for 10 minutes..!!

View attachment 305242

I'll go back a bit further, I grew up with these Tamiya videos and owned the Ford Ranger XLT like in the video, ahh memories
They used to play them in the hobby shops back in the day, Tamiya had awesome marketing back then..!!

Yeah I burned my fingers a few times on that Mech Speedo Resistor.

 

[gotnitro]

Yeah I burned my fingers a few times on that Mech Speedo Resistor.

Oh yeah! Big time!