I always found this fun, and it actually works pretty well too Thanks for the kind words Rob.Thanks for the side by side comparison of the chassis! The nostalgia website for vintage radio controlled cars & other toys, from Tamiya, Nikko, Kyosho, Tyco, Taiyo, Radio Shack, Shinsei, AYK, Marui, Tomy, and many more.Today it remains a must-have classic for collectors – a gorgeous scale off-roader that still looks amazing, and is one of those pieces of Tamiya history that really defined the brand.Ask the average person on the street to name some of the R/C cars released by Tamiya during the 1980s, and there’s a very good chance that “The Grasshopper” will be one of the names they remember.It was undoubtedly one of Tamiya’s best-selling buggies of the era.Remarkably, the unusual notion of naming radio controlled buggies after animals (which I also covered in my article about.To this day, the Tamiya brand remains synonymous with the 1980s R/C buggy “craze” in the minds of many people.

Ended up buying a Technigold motor for it and made it fly.Hi ime not sure if i have the hornet or grasshopper as the body has no decals on and the only writing i see is on the front bumper “rcc quatro” made in japan,so not exactly sure what i am restoring but its headlights are on the front part of the body(hornet)while i see the grasshopper lights are closer to the windscreen,please advise,I have investigated further and found that on your comparisons vintage and remake on the original frog has the writing as described in my previous comment so now ime even more confused could be a toss up between frog,hopper or hornet HELP! Really low grass (like the putting area of a golf course) is ok. God Bless the ESC!! Yet even many of the names seem to lack imagination – about 7 new Tamiya buggies in the past decade or so have been called “…Fighter” or “Fighting…”. If you’ve ever driven a Hornet, you’ll know how quick they are in a straight line, but also how tricky they can be as they fish-tail through corners, especially on dusty tracks.By contrast the more modestly-paced Grasshopper is actually quite a pleasure, and it’s still quicker than,With spring suspension and no oil-filled shock absorbers, things can get bouncy with the Grasshopper though, and those glorious high-walled vintage tyres also add some extra bounce….The Grasshopper features the classic Tamiya 3-piece wheels – each wheel has an inner rim, and two outer rims affixed together with tiny screw and hex nuts. The,The humble Grasshopper may have been the minnow of Tamiya’s R/C lineup in terms of straight-line speed, from 1984 until it was discontinued in the late 1980s. I’m looking at buying a starter kit for my daughter to get the hang of and to have a bit of fun running it in the garden and park and possibly make it go faster.

380 motors were still popular in kit-based R/C models in the early 1980s for their reasonable speed and longer run times on a single battery charge. After all, ‘the Beetle’ was inspired by real beetles – the bonnet and boot resembling folded insect wings. © 2020 Pistonheads Holdco Limited, All Rights Reserved.Tamiya grasshopper, hornet or rising fighter?My 13yr old daughter was asking about my old rc optima mid and porsche 959 to race about so rather than destroy these old cars I thought sell them to buy a couple of new cars with readily available spares. Sometimes a industrial design’s link to the natural world can result in an evergreen shape that human eyes will appreciate for many years. Growing up, I knew that if I was ever lucky enough to own some Tamiya kits, I’d be building them exactly as standard spec, as to me this is what they were meant to be.So this one is absolutely original-spec (no upgrades) right down to the screws, the mechanical speed controller, and the black plastic bearings. I too wanted a Tamiya in the 80’s, but my mum couldn’t afford it. If your Grasshopper does turn out to be an original, you might also want to replace the reissued decals with originals too, at some stage in the future .Congratulations on an excellent blog! top speed) to make it more usable for your daughter.The Rising Fighter is not a bad kit for the money. It’s a simple, yet strong design, which also offers easy access to your radio equipment. Just take your time, mask things off carefully, and spray.One unusual aspect of the Grasshopper is the fact that the body affixes to the car with 4 screws, rather than the body pins found on most R/C models. The first one I ever made. While this does prove to be a hassle when you need to remove the body, it also leaves Grasshopper’s body free of those pins and therefore looking a bit more realistic.In keeping with Tamiya’s clever marketing, the Grasshopper’s decals are a mix of simple stripes and logos within a limited colour palette.