Associated RC12i 1/12 Electric Car

Probably the first serious radio control car I ever purchased was an Associated RC12i. At the time, the car had just replaced the RC12e as the weapon of choice for on road 1/12 racers in Perth Australia. I can't remember for the life of me how I stumbled upon this supplier of this car at the time in Perth, Strombecker Raceway but that was a big favourite joint of mine.

The 12i that I first got was the version with the slots cut into the front of the chassis and the front solid arms being a direct carry over from the 12e. This was a first attempt by Associated at making front suspension for their 1/12 pan car. Crude but I guess it worked. At the time that I acquired the car I had zero experience in running a radio control car in any sort of competitive manner, let alone on an actual track rather than out in front of my drive way. I remember making one trip to a club race and rather than being hooked, I had no idea which direction I was going and how to navigate a course laid out with firemen hoses at night I a shopping centre car park. It was a disaster but was fun. But given I was still a school kid and needed my dad to drive me to the track, it was something I only managed to do once.

I distinctly remember soon after acquiring the car that Associated introduced the springs into the front suspension arms, this doing away with the slotted front section of the chassis. I immediately purchased the new front set up and the chassis plate required to accommodate the new front end. At around the same time I remember that the resistor speed controller was beginning to make way for a new phenomenon- the electronic speed control. But rather than the Novak models that were beginning to find ground in the U.S., we had a local Australian manufacturer, if memory serves me, called BC Electronics, who knocked up a big ass unit and sold it for the princely sum of AUD75. I think at the time I may have been using initially a JR stick radio and then swapped to a Sanwa stick radio that was metal cased and a shade of grey green. If I ever find one of those I will definitely buy it back again.

Sometime after this, Associated came out with the monoshock independent front end utilising an RC500 shock with a small spring. I remember that by the time I had saved the cash up for that unit, unfortunately all the kits had been old out at Strombecker. Luckily they had all the spares available, so at rather a lot more cost I ended up building the front end out of spare parts. I never actually ended up running the car with that front  end though, and the car went into storage. I am still hoping that the car may one day pop up in my parent house though I am pretty sure it was thrown out long ago.

The example of the 12i that I have is the mid production version utilising the springs in the uprights up front. Interestingly the chassis is already drilled for the monoshock kit as well indicating that this was a late production car or was at least built from some late production parts. It's in fact very similar to the spec of the car that I had used back in the day.

As can be seen from the above picture, this car features the later optional graphite central chassis stiffener as compared with the earlier cars that had the plastic stiffener. Just as I had upgraded my very own ride years before.

I remember gradually building up my car to this spec give that my original car was of the 12e front block spec. If I remember the last part I put on that car was the rear ride height adjuster set. Heavens knows why but this single mod was to me the coolest thing back then. It just looked so high tech to me!

I was really really happy with the unit I found on eBay as it was totally unmolested. I remember the
mods of choice used to be drilling out the rear pod upper plate and butchering the top radio plate, plus
dyeing all the nylon parts black. Heavens knows I spent hours doing that on my old cars. Thankfully this example was totally clean and looked like it had almost never been used. This has to be one of my most favourite models in my collection. I actually am amazed at how hard it is to find a 12i for sale, let alone one in good condition and even more that this example only cost me USD75 excluding shipping.

Looking under the chassi, one can see that this car was barely if even used at all.

My next purchase which I am patiently looking for now is the version with the monoshock front end. Not going to be easy, but this is a must have for me.