Radio controlled cars as a hobby were a huge thing when I was growing up.
I think that the 80s verged on being the era when the radio control car was just beginning to gain huge acceptance in my home town as not only a mainstream toy of choice for many young boys, but was also a growing hobby for the slightly older kids and young adults.
Indeed the 80s held a great fondness for me. I remember being constantly distracted by the dream of one day owning one of the radio controlled cars that I used to regularly see in the annual Tamiya catalogue. That particular model is a car that finally today I have finally managed to get a hold of, and will be the subject of a future blog entry- the Tamiya 1/12 Toyota Celica LB Turbo.
As a young school kid, I grew up in Perth Western Australia where there were a few main hobby shops at the time that also contained a selection of radio control goodies for the hobbyist. If memory serves me right, the first place that I stumbled upon as a kid was Strombecker along Barrack Street. The shop, located above a pin ball arcade actually had a big slot car track smack bang in the middle of it where people could go and rent slot cars to whizz around the track. Whilst the shop then closed its slot car track and moved to a long counter downstairs still selling hobby equipment, it is long gone. It's proprietor at the time was a gentleman by the name of Alan Hurst. Amazing how one can remember such things from the past. But what held the most interest for me for that place was its little corner cabinet where it sold all the Associated 1/12 goodies. I remember purchasing my first serious car, an Associated RC12i and lots of related goods from him at the time. Whilst no pictures remain of that store, here is a picture of the slot car track that used to be located in it... Yes it still exists it seems!
After this, I remember paying a visit soon after to another shop located in Mount Lawley by the name of Stanbridges. The shop was one of those treasure trove type stores that was filled to the brim with lots of stuff in every nook and cranny. But the one thing I remember most from that store was the Wild Willy that they had on the counter as a demo car. The shop was great, and the guys there were really friendly back then. It really struck me as a family run concern and I am pretty sure it was. Hat store still exists to this day and from what I gather has expanded quite dramatically though it still remains in the same location that I had visited all those years ago.
The next store that left an impression on me was a place along Murray Street that was located in a basement called Perth Hobby Centre. Perth Hobby Centre was a place that I used to frequent with my parents in tow very regularly. It was the place to go for radio control planes and Tamiya Buggies, and was the place that I first picked up my Tamiya Super champ with one hump back Tamiya battery and a Futaba 2gs radio for the then princely sum of AUD325. Imagine that to this day I still remember that number so well. That was followed some time later by a Tamiya Frog from the same store. It's sad to see, but a recent search on that shop indicates that it is run by a bunch of idiots now and is an overpriced store with low standards of service.
The final store in my memory was a store by the name of ABC Hobbies if I remember right. Whilst
there was only one thing I ever bought from them, it is quite possibly one of the most special. It was a brand new Associated RC10 when that buggy first came out. I remember having to order that buggy kit in, and waiting months on end for its arrival. What a day it was when they called to say it had arrived and I had to wait till after school to go and collect it. The best part is I still have that buggy to this day, and will post on it separately one day.
Where Is All This Leading:
One sad thing is that these hobby shops are becoming fewer and far between nowadays as the hobby scene has gradually slowed and been taken over by computer and video games. Also the advent of the mail order shop has more or less killed the hobby shop, though I guess on the positive that also means that now one can have very easy access to almost anything available on the Internet.
Whilst I lost interest in RC many years ago after the RC10 was shelved I had a brief revival in early 2000 when I moved to Singapore for work and got into 1/8 on road racing due to a fantastic 1/8 track here (I will be covering some of the cars I acquired and ran during the period in a later post). But then my first child was born and there was another drought for me in RC as I focused on family duties and 1/1 scale cars (yeah read about those exploits in my other blog.... Http://smfracing.blogspot.com).
And then amazingly my eldest got me back into RC many years later when he grew up. It went something like this, sometime in end 2012 my eldest son began looking for a new hobby besides computer games and football. He had dabbled with the idea of slot cars (not sure where that idea came from) before I suggested a try of Mini Z racing as there is a good track here in Singapore for that. He soon realised he was pretty good at that and before I knew it he was beating me around the track. That soon lead to 1/10 touring cars and a bit of buggy bashing for my youngest before I decided to get back into 1/8. And that's when the real fire reignited and I began to really, really get back into radio control cars. It all was focused on new 1/8 racing cars and beating lap times etc etc. but then something hit me.
The desire to get back into looking at the old radio control cars that I had always wished I had as a kid but just could never obtain due to there being no hobby shops stocking that stuff around me and a general lack of that all important resource- money.
Indeed thanks to the advent that has pretty much killed the local hobby store, the Internet, and eBay, I have in recent times managed to collect a number of cars that I had dreamed off as a kid. And this is where this blog of mine is going to head towards. Showcasing my collection and the memories that each of these models brings to me.
Hope you all enjoy the ride as much as I am sure I will. Cheers.
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