What was your first RC experience?

[Halgar]

Tamiya Clodbuster, 1999.

I'd wanted one for a while and my sister bought me one for my birthday that year. I had three of them within a year. Lot's of fun, but didn't have anyone to wrench or play with and, sadly, I quit playing with them and sold them about 10 years later. I'm kinda sorta getting the itch again, so don't be surprised if I show up with another one sometime in the nearish future.

[RPMfieldtester]

It was the late 1960s and I was still in elementary school. My dad was a truck driver and had heard about a parking lot with people racing little cars by remote control from a coworker. Dad was a former drag racer and shared his love for racing with me. We would go watch slot cars, tethered race cars, dry lakes races, drags and even motorcycle hill climbs, any racing, any time.
One weekend we drove to the address given, a plumbing supply company if I remember right, and parked. Immediately we were startled by the high-pitched whine coming from the back of the business. We walked to the back and found a practice race in progress. The cars were scaled down duplicates of real can am style road race cars with brightly painted bodies and big, high mounted wings. The cars were about the size of a skateboard and left a trail of blue-gray smoke as they ripped and slid around the curvy track.
We were told the track was called "Thorpe Raceway" and held regular races.
To my dad, these were toys so he thought I would like one to play with on the street in front of our home. He asked a racer "how much do these things cost" and was floored when the racer told him "about $1500" and that they were mostly hand made by their owners. The racer pulled the body off and showed us the complex and mechanically beautiful chassis. He said he was an engineer at the close by General Dynamics and had machined most of the metal parts of the chassis in his home shop. During a break from racing, he powered up the car and box radio to show us how everything moved from his input to the radio...it was magic!

[Frankentruck]

That's huge money in the 1960's!

[radioactivity]

For me it was the mid 50’s.
Glenview Naval Air station. standing on Lehigh Rd just outside the perimeter fence of the air field.
Not cars but RC airplanes.
The Academey of Model Aeronautics was holding their national event at the Naval Air Station in Glenview, IL.
It was held there about every 4 years from 1954 until the early 70’s.
Living no more than 2 miles due north of the N/S runway I saw full sized planes flying almost every day.
But this time my Dad had taken me to see them fly model RC planes. Seeing the model planes fly around without any wires attached to them, it was like magic
I remember what seemed to be huge RC planes, I was no more than 7 years old.
Huge B52’s, biplanes and all manner of other planes.

Later years I hung out on the base quite a bit. I was friends with the base commanders son.


Chuck

[Halgar]

For me it was the mid 50’s.

Ahhhh, the good ol' days when the remotes were the size of a Buick!

[Dadio]

I remember my first sight of an RC car , was a Sand Scorched owned by one of my Cub Scout group , he was from one of the better off family's and had a huge garden that was the venue for a cooking contest , basically we just had to fry eggs , bacon and fried bread on a wood fire , I must have been 8 or 9 years old , after the contest was over our host Willie Swain an older lad than me , got his Sand Scorched out , I was transfixed . Willie was built like a brick privy , really nice bloke except during games of British Bulldogs , he'd just run straight ahead grinning like a madman leaving a wake of fallen opponents to either side , I learnt I could usually come second at any game of British Bulldogs by just running close behind him , I did ask if I could drive the Sand Scorcher but he declined ....I didn't push it .
My second experience was with my brother's aeroplanes , he flew planks at a local club and I'd often go with my mother to pick him up , the club was at the university rugby fields , the area was hilly and they had several rugby fields that were tiered so each was flat , the flying club used the highest field so as you approached the pilots were not visible as you came up from the lower fields , it was on one such approach that i stopped in my tracks as an rc helicopter appeared flying from up the slope , now this was in the 70s remember maybe 78 and RC helicopters were not like they are now , as I watched it banked and flew back and out of sight , then it came back in view or at least parts of it did , I just saw fragments and broken rotor blades exploding into the air , when i reached the top field the whole club was gathered around the carnage , I know it's an off topic storie but it was RC and I'll never forget it .

[RPMfieldtester]

That's huge money in the 1960's!

Yeah it was and I remember my dads gasp...but the 1/8scale gas cars were mechanical works of art back then...

[RPMfieldtester]

Previously I posted my first intro to R/C cars but it was so expensive that it was almost mythical. About ten years later, a more realistic event occurred that set my path...
In the late 70s or early 80s, my dad took me and some friends to the Score Show, a car show/trade show for off road enthusiasts and the racing community. As we walked the show, an announcer's voice blaring over loudspeakers caught our attention so we followed the noise. The crowd around the fenced in arena was several bodies deep but I found an opening and moved closer. Inside the small arena, the show staff had built a dirt track filled with dirt clods, jumps and bumps.
Small electric off-road buggies were racing around the track. They jumped and flipped and were so much fun to watch and the crowd was really into it. I don't remember the exact year, only that it was pre RC10. These were much more relatable and obtainable compared to the super expensive hand-built gas cars we had seen maybe 10years earlier at Thorpe raceway.
It would be a while but once I started working, one of my first "fun" purchases would be an all new RC10 from Ranch Pit Shop...soon I was racing there every Wednesday night...best of times!

[dldiaz]

I had multiple toy-grade R/Cs, I would ask for one every Christmas.
- The only one I really remember was the "Dust Runner", a model of the Honda ATC250R three-wheeler with cool rubber tires and Hi/Lo transmission.

Well one year one of my older brothers (who dabbled in R/C airplanes) convinced our parents to get me a hobby-grade R/C.
- They let my brother pick the latest-and-greatest model for me - which turned out to be the Tamiya Frog!

My brother and I built it, he painted the body with his airbrush (green with dark green spots like a 'frog' ), and we finally got it all charged up and ready to go.
- We set it down in a small gravel area in the backyard.
- I pushed the throttle stick and it spit gravel with the kind of power neither of us was expecting!!
- In that moment I was forever hooked - my brother also clearly remembers this exact moment.


It was 2-3 years later before I encountered an R/C race-track, then I started racing every weekend for several years.

[Halgar]

That's huge money in the 1960's!

Yeah it was and I remember my dads gasp...but the 1/8scale gas cars were mechanical works of art back then...

That is what I love about the original Tamiya Mountaineer/hilux, all metal, almost IRL scale realism. It wasn't the halfassed plastic crap of today. I bought one at a garage sale, but, unfortunately, it was at the end of my RC time, so I sold it off with the rest of my gear.

[RPMfieldtester]

That is what I love about the original Tamiya Mountaineer/hilux, all metal, almost IRL scale realism. It wasn't the halfassed plastic crap of today. I bought one at a garage sale, but, unfortunately, it was at the end of my RC time, so I sold it off with the rest of my gear.

My buddy bought one when they first came out. It was his first r/c car and he never did finish it...too many small moving parts for his attention span..

[Halgar]

I never worked on mine, though I understand that the tranny was a real pain to get right. I don't remember the details of what was so difficult, but it wasn't as easy as just splining gears and shafts together. I think it was a shifting thing, which was remotely controlled.

[TRX-1-3]

I got a really cheap green army jeep when I was around 8 or 9. Wire whip antenna with the little red nub at the end black box stick with a steering wheel on it. That thing got taken apart and swallowed by the junk drawer/disappeared. Then I saw the Tyco line while watching cartoons and when I was around 11 or 12, I really wanted a Turbo Hopper for Christmas. I ended up getting an FX10 and the rest is history.

[joeh51]

My Dad took me to the Tampa World of Wheels car show in 1985 , behind the expo hall they were racing 1/8 onroad Nitro cars . I was blown away watching these cars go around the track. I remember looking up at my Dad and he gave me the , it's never gonna happen look . After that all I could think about was getting a Hobby grade RC car that could actually be raced .

[Coelacanth]

I had multiple toy-grade R/Cs, I would ask for one every Christmas.

My story and fascination with RC is similar to yours. Growing up as a young teen in the early 80's, I always asked for remote control cars for Christmas and gifts. I remember the silly battery-operated tethered "remote control" cars that would go straight forward, or reverse while turning in one direction. Those were so LAME, even I as a youngster thought that level of controllability was stupid.

I remember wanting an RC Jeep called Fat Wheels so bad one Christmas and being crushed that I didn't get it:



But sometime in 1980 or 1981, my parents travelled to Japan and brought my brother and I back some ridiculously cool toy-grade RC motorcycles, like nothing that was available in Canada back then. I got "Buggy Boy Wheelie", an offroad trike with a battery pack that could be changed positions in the seat to allow it to ride smoothly or do wheelies. My brother got a 2-wheeled street bike that had a gyro inside, there was nothing like that in North America back in '80/'81-ish.

I don't know what happened to my bro's bike but I still have my Buggy Boy Wheelie, and everything still works! Here's a topic I shared years ago for anyone interested in more details:

https://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=29026&p=300414