Very early RC cars

[bobjeffreson]

Back in the late 1960's and early 70's RC cars were in their infancy. Nobody really had any idea where the RC hobby was headed. An early pioneer was an American slot car racer, named John Thorp. As soon as John saw an RC car, he was hooked. He began producing RC cars, coincidentally known as Thorps....

He brought his slot car background with him to the new hobby and used much of it, till the hobby found its own direction. Here are some examples of his first efforts. Pretty sophisticated little car for its day. What about the transmitter......probably one of the 1st Futaba's and the accelerator on the back of the unit, as adapted by Thorp, is straight out of the slot car ranks!
 John Thorp went on to become one of the biggest names in American RC history, till his death in April 2012.

[robhod]

Hi Bob i remember travelling down from Vancouver to Seattle with dad in 1974/75 to race 1/12 & 1/8 Bolink and Associated cars using the same radio with the pistol grip on the back

Rob

[bobjeffreson]

"1/12 & 1/8 Bolink and Associated cars"
Rob,
My 1st RC car was a Marui HUNTER Buggy. I replaced the Off road body with BOLINK sprint car body, to race at a long closed 1/10th scale dirt track speedway at Rouse Hill. That was 1983. After a couple of years, I upgraded to an ASSOCIATED RC 10. Wasn't that a car. Ran the ring out of it for years, till our 1/10th scale speedway club folded in 1996. That car still sits in my shed!

[greg]

My first one was a 1/10th tamiya (think that's spelt right) used to race at Charlestown square carpark on a Sunday, because back then Sunday trading did not exist!!!.
Then had a 1/10th Associated road car.
And the pistol grip in the photo used to have one ,running slotcars at Glendale back in the early 80's.

[robhod]

Those were they days I remember too when we used the car parks as tracks. We did the dame in Seattle USA and in Christchurch NZ in the early 80's but that was electric 1/12 scale by then. Ni more Cox 049 and Cox tee dee engines

Jan 16, 2014 8:33:45 GMT 10 greg said:

My first one was a 1/10th tamiya (think that's spelt right) used to race at Charlestown square carpark on a Sunday, because back then Sunday trading did not exist!!!.
Then had a 1/10th Associated road car.
And the pistol grip in the photo used to have one ,running slotcars at Glendale back in the early 80's.