10 years of R/C Toy Memories…

Well, that went quick. Or did it? 🤔 Somehow, this website has now clocked 10 years and nearly 1.4m visits. And 2012 feels both a long time ago. And like yesterday…

My original goal for R/C Toy Memories was just to write an online diary about my personal collecting, childhood memories of R/C cars, and other random stuff…

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Time flies, as the saying goes. And somehow, it’s now been 10 years since I first set this website up. Although isn’t it surreal to think that nearly a quarter of those 10 years has taken place during the COVID-19 pandemic? Can that really be possible? Where have the past 2.5 years actually gone?

The older you get, the slower (and stupider) you (or maybe just I?) also get. And to compound this problem, the faster time itself seems to pass by. It’s all an illusion of course. As adults, we work hard + often waste our downtime. Whereas, kids spend every moment looking for the next bit of fun they can have. There’s never a dull moment, and every Christmas seems an interminably long time away.

Yet for adults, each Christmas season seems to start just a few hours after the last one…

But yes, this website is now 10. And back in 2012 when I started it, my goal had been to “jot down” a few things I knew about R/C models, so that I wouldn’t forget them. A sort of toy collector online diary. Which I figured the odd visitor might find. Or not. And that was fine either way.

I think it’s fair to say the site got more attention than I ever expected. Maybe it even inspired some of you to collect vintage R/C models?

A lot has changed since 2012, both for me as a collector and as a person. My first post in 2012 was about the Tandy/Radio Shack Jeep Renegade – chosen simply because it was the first R/C car I ever owned as a child. Meanwhile, the Internet itself has also changed since then, becoming a lot more commercialized. It is now a place where relatively few private, hobbyist websites (like this) exist anymore.

Due to work/career commitments, I must admit it has become more difficult in recent years to post as frequently as I once did. But on the positive side, I still have a ton of vintage R/C items in my collection that I could write about in the coming years. And even though my updates have slowed, the truth is I still very much enjoy tracking down vintage R/C goodies and related items.

In the meantime, I hope the 100+ past articles continue to be useful to refer back to. After all, the goal had always been to make this website a little historical reference.

And unlike all those popular R/C YouTubers out there these days, who have abandoned websites in favour of videos…  at least you can easily find the information I’ve written via a simple Google search. Ever tried searching for something someone said, in a YouTube clip?

There’s a time and place for all formats. But I have no desire to become a YouTube star, trying to monetize my content. I’ll just stick to writing. And if you want to, you can continue to find my ramblings here (for free) 🙂

2 fun facts…

• • The most popular article of all time on the site, is “A Quick Guide to Vintage vs Remake Tamiya R/C kits” (nearly 100,000 visits)
  • The top 10 countries where my visitors have come from, are: 1) USA, 2) UK, 3) Australia, 4) Germany, 5) Canada, 6) France, 7) Italy, 8) Netherlands, 9) Belgium, 10) Switzerland.

And what have I been doing in recent months?

Obviously it’s been a long time between articles. And that wasn’t intentional. But despite my hectic work life (and to some degree, a bit of writer’s block) my hobby activities are always ticking along in the background… usually in secret…

1) Late last year, I finally finished my Tamiya Mini Cooper. It’s not that vintage, but was given to me in 2002 by my parents (not too long before my father passed away), and I regretted never finishing the kit. So, during all the pandemic lockdowns I made it my mission to complete all the fiddly masking and decal-ing to the highest standard I could muster.

I think the end result was… decent.

2) Does anyone else collect the Hot Wheels Car Culture models? I love them, and must have more than a hundred by now. They’ve been around for perhaps 7 or 8 years, or so. Each one is Matchbox-sized and cost a few dollars more than your basic Matchbox or Hot Wheels model. Except they’re all metal, with rubber tyres, and beautifully detailed paintwork”. What’s more, they often depict retro cars – such as this Audi Sport Quattro from the Group B rally era. As an extra bonus, they’re all manufactured in Thailand (instead of elsewhere).

3) A friend 3D printed me some Tamiya stands for sitting R/C cars on in my display cabinets. They’re from a design found online. He even made the two-colour Tamiya logo as a separate inlay, which is then glued in. Amazing stuff. And the first time I’ve ever had a practical use for 3D printing 😄

4) I’ve also been busy collecting other retro things at times, such as classic sci-fi novels with artwork I like. Yes – in addition to being a toy dork, I’m also a science-fiction book dork. What a surprise! 😐 Does anybody else like older sci-fi books? I’ve got a thing for 1980s/1990s hardcovers in particular, featuring beautiful painted vistas of other planets and ships…

5) I already mentioned having found a holy grail – the Fujimi Mazda RX-7 Savanna Racing – in a previous article. This was a Christmas present to myself last Christmas, so here’s another couple of additional pics. The kit is old of course, and was probably getting moved around in old toy stock in Japan for 40 years. But somehow survived and seems complete. Fujimi – better known for plastic models, so this was one of their few forays into R/C.

6) A few months ago, a lady from a country town contacted me about a vintage R/C truck her daughter had owned in the early 1990s, that she wanted to pass on to her grandson. But unfortunately the truck didn’t work anymore.

Sometimes it’s fun to just fix things up out of sympathy for the toy, or to make someone else happy. So I offered to clean and fix the truck. And posted it to the little boy, who lived many hundreds of kilometres away, on the coast. The car was a Taiyo Offroad Tiger, which is a sort of descendant of the car best known as the Tandy/Radio Shack 4×4 Off-Roader. It came up like new.

So that’s it from me for today.

Thanks for visiting over the past 10 years. Here’s to another 10? 🙂