Best car of its era
 

Here is a little game for you old-timers.

Pretend you have been sent on a time tunnel that takes you back to 1985...
Obviously, you forgot to take with you the winning numbers at the lottery, so what is left to do ? RC, of course!

What would be your car choice over the years, now that you know what works and what’s not ?
Another way to say it would be : what was the best car of its era? 2WD and 4WD.

My choice :

4WD
1985..........Zerda
1986..........Optima
1987..........CAT XLS or maybe YZ870c
1988..........Mid LWSP
1989..........Lazer ZX
1990..........
1991..........Works 91
1992..........
1993..........Works 93
1994..........
1995..........Cat 2000EC
1996..........
1997..........XX-4
...
2004..........BJ4 or X-5


2WD
1985..........RC10
...
1988..........JRX-2
...
1990..........RC10 Team Car
...
1992..........TRX-1 or Cougar 2
1993..........
1994..........Losi XX
...
1999..........Losi XXX
...
2003..........RC10B4


Feel free to comment and add your own list! :)

favorite 2wd for me was a traxxas rad2 loved it , would like one for nostalgia but very hard to find now :confused:
and my fave 4wd was a yokomo works 93 i think or was it 91 :eh?:,

Predator 98 if i got it to finish a race

Favorite 2WD: goldpan RC10 classic
Favorite 4wd: Kyosho Optima/Mid

Darryl, I have a Rad2 hanging on the wall in the garage :p


G

wow bloody great car i had one when i started racing back in 97:drool:

When I first got into RC racing in 1988 (after getting my first car at Christmas 1987) until my semi-retirement in about 1993, the best cars at the club/regional race meetings I was going to in the UK were ALWAYS Schumacher CAT's, XLS to start with, then Pro-Cat, then BossCat. A few very good drivers locally ran the Kyoshos of the time (Optima Mid/Lazer) but the vast majority of people were quicker with a CAT.

2wd didn't really exist in my world at that time, RC10s were pretty rare I think, there were quite a few Schumacher TopCat and Cougars, maybe a handful of Traxxas TRX and Losi cars.

Ever the stubborn individual, I decided to run Tamiya from about 1990 onwards - Avante 2001, Madcap, Top Force Evo. In retrospect, were these the best cars on the market. NO. Would I have run something else? No, I liked the cars, still do!

What I do remember though is that the Schumacher was pretty dreadful quality compared to the Kyosho's. I looked at my brothers old ProCat a few years ago and was shocked at how ropey the mouldings were and how inefficient the drivetrain was - no wonder anyone worth their salt fitted loads of different parts.

The Kyoshos were about the same as they are now in terms of quality - ie good. The Tamiyas were not built for racing though and you used to get these niggling breakages all the time, thankfully they now build their race cars properly!

4wd for me would be the Cat XLS and 2wd would be either the ultima graphite or jrx2

I started at Queensferry club in Edinburgh with a modified optima, a pb mustang.
Then went onto a brand new optima pro ,
Then ermm i think it was a mid optima turbo , then a lazer zx,
Then my fave car a tomy intruder.
Then back to a lazer zxr.

My fav 4wd was the Cat 2000 (original one) and for 2wd it was the RC10B2.

from the late 80's it has to be my heavily modified ultima in 2wd and my faithfull maxima in 4wd although that is neck and neack with my cat xls :thumbsup:

Boss cat for me when it came out in 4wd. lapped Bren Ralls in my first meeting with it, the following week there were about 5-6 Boss cats!

In 2wd the TRX1 was a beautiful car, just didn't go well at my indoor club where cougars ruled with the odd Rc10.

Mmmmm well the Boss Cat I liked (well it was Craig harris' car) and me and craig won a 24 hour race with it and it didnt falter at all, nothing, it was still like new at the end of the run and that was impressive, mind you we didnt crash throughout the event so kindof one reason I suppose.

However my all time favourite 4wd car was the 1996 Lazer ZXS Evolution, followed closely by the ZXR Mk1 version and then the Boss cat.Ok I won an event or two with a YZ10 but it wasnt fun to drive so that would be in fourth place.

2WD RC10B2 as it was so easy to dial on carpet, and I loved it being able to oversteer on carpet and then the next place has to be the original RC10 Kinwald version, followed by the Schumacher Cougar as it was so simple yet a very competitive car, especially in the hands of Paul Gardiner. Ok I won an event or two using a Rad two with carbon fibre chassis so that would be fourth.

Was the Losi XX4 popular in europe also in 1995?
Id like to have one, one day.

I checked horizon yesterday, they still carry XX4 parts. :)

Wasn't it released in '97ish? but yep, it was very popular over here back then, still is to a point, won the last National a few weeks back:)

As it was said XX4 came in 1997. It was also very popular in Slovakia. I used to race it too. Then year 2000 came and everyone here started racing TC. So I had no option and sold it to Poland. I bought instead of it HPI PRO. It's sad it took 8 years until 4wd buggies are alive here again. Whats better I've got XX4 again :lol: I didn't want any other car to begin however I had options such as AE B44 or Kyosho Lazer. Horizon carry XX4 parts and it's same with Losi Parts House.

In the 90'ies :

If you look at the competition when it came out : the Losi XX was by far the best car of it's era, certainly compaired to the alu thub RC10. AE only cought up when the RC10B2 got dialed in, and even then the XX was the easier car for 80% of the drivers.

4wd : The CAT2000 (original or EC) was a phenominal car for it's era. It could even hold its ground against the later and more modern XX4.

Agreed, the step from Bosscat to Cat2000 was massive. I remember my mate getting one of the first ones, it was awesome. I had one soon after :thumbsup:

G

i still have my original stand up shock Cat2000 at home. I ran it a few years ago when i started back and it happily whooped the XX4's XXX4's etc that it was up against. Handled bumps like they weren't there.

Me too. Last year, I tried my CAT2000EC. It's a shame the diffs, belts and slipper aren't up to modern day power levells.

If your prepared to look you can still get the odd XX4 brand new (WE version anyway), for example I have a BNIB one I found in a shop, and one at a place in North Carolina too!

I first raced an origional tamiya hotshot way back when at the winter gardens in skeg vegas. Skip forward a little it was a Lazer zx then on again to the zxr. I wish I'd kept them! I'd do owt for an origional lazer! I have the re release hotshot but havn't built it yet.

I was thinking about this as a similar topic came up on TamiyaClub.

I also thought which car made the biggest jump in performance over everything else when it came along.

Also you asked for era, not year, so for me there are 3 cars that set the bar just a little higher when they came along, and therefore are the best of the era for me.

CAT XLS - I was going to say the original CAT, but honestly it was so hard to drive, and even harder to build without breaking anything !
XLS made the CAT accesible to Joe Racer and kicked butt !
Optima Mid Custom Special - I know it wasn't really the car that pushed the bar higher as such, but it was the final refinement of that model which was such a great car.
and the number 1 position goes to:

RC-10.
it was better than the 4wd cars of the day !
Just THE car to have if you wanted to race.

In my opinion, I think the car the changing Buggy racing/design has got to be the original Optima, I had one of the very first in my club and no other car was even close to it at the time, I think the closest to it was the mardave meteor!!!!

A year later the Cat was released and my optima just could not keep up with them, the biggest floor in the original optima was the chain stretching!!

G

IMO, the cars that raised the bar the most were the original RC10, then the Team Car, the Losi XX and the Losi XXX. In 4wd, it would be the Cat XLS (specially indoors), the YZ870C, and of course the fantastic Cat 2000 with laydown shocks.:wub

Awesome post guys, keep them coming!:)

This is quite a difficult question to answer, as often a successful car in one continent didn't necessarily mean it would work well everywhere else.

The Optima is a prime example of this - in Europe this car ended the reign of the 2wd (before the classes were split), most notably at the 86 Euro's, where Jamie Booth was the lone RC10 (10th) in a field of 8 Optimas and 1 SG Coyote.

However locally for me (Australia), the Optima was completely outclassed by a buggy released in 1985, the Mugen Bulldog. This was simply because a local distributor developed some excellent mods for this car which saw it completely dominate our racing scene for several years, and was even competitive against the Cat.

Outside Australia, the Bulldog was probably an almost unhead of car.

For me, the best cars are the one which were innovative for their time, such as:

83 Hirobo 44b
84 RC10
85 Bulldog
86 Incident
86 Cat
89 JRX2
93 Losi XX
94 Yok YZ10
97 Losi XX4

Yep Im going to put this one out there- how about the Tamiya 501X. Sure its new and even though it hasnt revolutionised the racing scene as such it certainly lifted the bar as far as Tamiya is concerned.
But talking vintage-perhaps the biggest suprise would have been when the JRX2 came to town. Not many people knew much of Team Losi when this car was released and it quickly ate up alot of the current competition cars.
I think puting almost any car in the right hands will yeild good results.

Was Poland happy with it's purchase.

Oh you mean this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cJLvSa9CcA
It's the 1987 iFmar Worlds:thumbsup:

Now Look at this one:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoWT-lMs0Pk
2003 Ifmar worlds with a B4 and T4.

And this one:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veKEnDts85w
This is the qualifying with a lone 501x, I think I saw one.
And compare the 3.:woot:

After seening these japan pro drivers practice I got a 501x.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfsdiRa38ws

That polish guy was surely happy =o) It was hard to get good car here.

The XX4 was amazingly innovative and progressed moulded intergrated chassis to another level, wasn't quite matched by the electrics of the time which is almost a shame retrospectivly. Similairly after the long term domination of the RC10, the Losi XX brought 2wd bump and jump handling on leaps and bounds.

The Pred will always be one of the most innovative cars and though I didn't race 4wd at the time, I know if you could get it to finish the run it was an amazingly fast car.

I think the X6 is innovative in that whilst not the first manufacturer to make a mid motor 2wd, I personally class them as the first to make a successful one.

It it hard to get good hats also - you should sell him yours - it's the shizzle.

Well I'm not going to sell it. It's only I have. :lol:

I need one, where did you get yours? My brother goes to your place twice a year for paragliding reasons - I'll tell him to get one.

Stu - truly I really don't know. It just appeared here from nowhere.

i would get a load of old tamiya's - they're worth a helluva lot now - if thats what the thread is about :p

i had procat,never liked it:bored:pain in the arse trying to keep the belt on front pulley:cry:then i bought work's 91 yokomo:thumbsup:

2wd:
1983- present RC10 B1,2,3,4

can anyone remember the tamiya egress? raced one from 1989-1994,then moved to the cat 2000 both were class cars:D

awesome car.

what about jamie booths 4wd national champ manta ray / topforce hybrid?