Growing up in the 1980s, few things captured the imagination quite like a Tamiya RC car. Back then, I could never afford a Tamiya; I'd make do with a non-RC model, but it wouldn't stop me from paying a weekly visit to the model store to gawp at the real thing. The box art alone, the large, loopy wheels, the wild sense of motion, made me imagine how they'd be to toy with. I'd head home and draw my versions of the comical jeep Wild Willy, learning to exaggerate form from a Japanese model box.
There was something about these model kits. The Grasshopper was the neatest. But Lunchbox, a tiny yellow van cab on monster truck wheels, and The Hornet, black, yellow, and impossibly fast, were the cars everyone wanted. Just as the best retro game consoles can turn back the clock, so can these nostalgic RC models.
Retuning my childhood
The Japanese model maker has reissued several of its most beloved RC kits, right down to their classic box art. You can once again build The Hornet, The Grasshopper, or that gloriously impractical Lunchbox. They’re just as fiddly, just as fun, and every bit as brilliant as you remember, though the batteries last a lot longer now.
For those with a designer’s eye, there’s even the Hornet by Jun Watanabe, a quirky reimagining of the 1984 legend by the celebrated graphic designer and Tamiya superfan. It’s part nostalgia trip, part collector’s piece, a nod to those of us who grew up drawing these cars in the margins of our exercise books.
What makes rediscovering these kits so satisfying isn’t just the finished model, but the process. You slow down. You build. You relive the patience you never had as a kid. There’s something quietly magical about clipping each piece from the sprue, slotting in the suspension arms, or peeling back that final decal without tearing it.
And when you finally take it outside, when those chunky rear tires bite into gravel, the motor whirrs, and that unmistakable whine of an electric RC fills the air, it’s not just a toy anymore, it’s time travel. I'm a kid again, Back to the Future is playing on the cinema, Jet Set Willy is bleeping on my ZX Spectrum, and my Tamiya model is waiting to be unboxed.
It turns out adulthood has its perks. I may not have had The Hornet in 1986, but I can have one now, and I don’t need to ask for it for Christmas.
Tamiya RC retro model deals
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