Its true My dad did get me a tamiya in the 80's
Since then Rc went out of my life somewhat, but it had gotten me started on simple electronics and mechanics. This progressed into engineering and tinkering with Landrovers for me for many years.
With the costs of family life kids etc this kind of faded out but I still had the itch to do some kind of tinkering.
When my dad passed away I found a box full of our old Tamiya stuff and the original Grasshopper 2 we painted metalic green to match his opel
I rebuilt this for my 6 year old son and its kind of progressed from there.
My racing is very poor but I am now completly hooked, all these years I hadn't know all this awesome racing stuff was even going on.