I’m a huge Tamiya fan even though I haven’t put together a Tamiya model in years. But, I recently found out that we have an online Tamiya store here in Kuwait which I’m tempted to impulse buy from.
They don’t have a huge collection of cars, but it’s a fairly decent one especially if you aren’t looking for anything specific. Prices are also higher than prices online but similar if you include shipping. They also have a large selection of paints and tools as well to help you with the build.
I don’t think I’m going to order anything even though I want to, this would have been perfect during the covid lockdowns but I don’t think I have the time or patience for it anymore. If you’re interested though their website is q8tamiya.com
Bader, a friend of mine who also won the Tamiya 501x buggy from the My Toy Facebook competition uploaded a video of his car in action around the My Toy offroad track. It looks very cool, I’m nearly finished building my car as well, just waiting for my motor and batteries to get delivered by Aramex. I don’t know what camera Bader mounted on the small 1/10 scale buggy but I already asked him and once he emails me a response will post it here. [YouTube]
My Toy have ended their 501x giveaway and have started a new competition in which you need to send them an edited RC car video. I sent them the one I made of my FJ Cruiser (below) which I think is a pretty cool video specially since it was my first.
After spending a week building the car and then painting it, I was finally able to take it out for a spin. It’s a race buggy and I should have taken it to the Tamiya track to test out but since I wanted to try and capture some nice shots I decided to take it to an empty desert instead. I feel guilty for doing that to the car but I was careful not to bash it too hard since I have to give the car back once I was done with the review.
I don’t have that much experience with buggies since the only electric buggy I have is the Tamiya Frog and it would be really unfair to compare the two since the Frog is actually a design from 1983 while the 502x is a current generation carbon fiber framed racing buggy. But, I have taken a ton of RC cars and trucks out to bash in the dessert before and from all of them the 502x as expected handled the best. Usually when I take the cars out into the dessert to bash they spend a lot of time flipping onto their backs or over or under steering. With the 502x the car managed to flip only once onto it’s back and that’s an incredible achievement with me since I’m a really careless and abusive driver. It also handled incredibly well turning when I wanted it to turn and gripping the dirt and loose pebbles with great east. It also took all the jumps like a champ and whenever it was in the air time seemed to stop for a second and everything went in slow motion until it hit the ground again. That’s why my brother was able to capture so many air shots, the car just floats in the air.
It was really fun building and driving the car and it’s going to be really tough to give it back. But, last night I found out I won the 501x in the My Toy weekly draw so maybe they’ll let me keep the 502x instead. If you’re interested in Tamiya’s, the dealer is called My Toy and they’re located in Tilal Complex on top of In Living Color. It’s a huge store which I’ve posted about before [Here]. You could also participate in their weekly draw to win a 501x by visiting their Facebook group [Here]
The pictures above were taken by my brother but were post processed by myself. To see my brothers post processed photos click [Here]
Last week I was checking my facebook account and noticed the local Tamiya dealer (My Toy) started a weekly competition where people could win a Tamiya TRF 501x race buggy. So, I entered the competition and didn’t win BUT I did get an email asking if I would be interested in reviewing the new TRF 502x and I said yes of course.
It’s been two years since I last built a Tamiya car so I was pretty excited to pick the car up. Along with the 502x frame they’re lending me a servo, tires, lipo battery, brush-less motor and ecu. Basically everything I need to get the car built and running except for a radio controller and receiver since I will be using my own. Oh I also picked up fluorescent pink paint since I think a bright pink racing buggy with a black rear wing and black wheels might turn out pretty cool. Below is a picture of how the pile of boxes above will end up looking like once I am done.
Note: In case you’re an RC fan I have a section dedicated to RC stuff [Here]
I went back to Tamiya today to try out their crawling trail which is made for RC cars that are meant for rock climbing. The trail was made with a combination of plaster and wood and although challenging in some places I found it a bit tiny and too easy. It’s a great idea but too short a trail so I am hoping they have plans to extend it or make a larger one. For now will stick to Bnaider for crawling.
One of my best friends bought a Tamiya car so we went over to the Tamiya track at the Tilal Complex in Shuwaikh to race our cars on their track. I wouldn’t call what we did racing since it was more like a destruction derby but it was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.
It was my first time using their new outdoor track and it’s amazing. A lot of nice curves, a good long straight and best of all they have 4 charging stations for our batteries. That means if you have two batteries you could race with one while charging the other and keep swapping for unlimited fun. It costs KD1 to use their track but its really worth it. I later noticed they have a small trail for the Tamiya crawlers so I will pass by tomorrow to try that out. It also turns out tomorrow is an off-road day which means they turn the track into an off-road one with jumps and stuff. I will be taking my Tamiya Frog to try that out as well.
My car shell has taken a lot of abuse from me so I decided to pick one up on the way out. I picked up a Ford Escort Cosworth which is actually my 4th favorite car ever (the first is the Lancia Delta Integrale), Going to paint it this week and hopefully race it next Friday.
I passed by the Tamiya dealer after lunch since I heard they got a new shipment of cars and parts. While there I noticed their outdoor track was nearly finished, seems it will be ready to race on by next week. Since I had one of my cars with me I decided to try out their indoor track and luckily no one was around because it would have been very embarrassing if anyone saw how horribly I was driving.
So far I’ve spent most of my time playing with my cars in empty parking lots or open desert spaces but this was the first time I tried driving in a confined track. I was basically really glad most of the walls were covered with foam padding since my car spent most of the laps slamming from one wall to the next like a pinball. My last laps were definitely much better than my first few but by then it was too late since my car’s shell had already gotten pretty beat up. It now has a large chunk missing in the front but I guess that just gives me an excuse to pick up a new body.
It’s been nearly a month since I got my Tamiya FJ and just a few moments ago I finished building it. It took some time because I had to paint the body and ended up messing up the job, I then had to wait for the motor and electronic speed controller to arrive from the States and finally tonight I just had to source one more small part locally and get some wires soldered onto the motor. I’m now done with it, I tidied up all the wiring and my FJ is finally ready for a crawling session. I missed out on one last Friday because my car wasn’t ready but this Friday I am going and will take some pictures once I do.
I personally wish I could participate in today’s giveaway since it involves a Tamiya radio controlled car and you know how much I love these cars. My Toy who are the local Tamiya dealers are giving away a ready to race Nissan GT-R TT-01E with battery, controller and charger. It’s ready to race meaning it’s already been built, painted and put together by the factory but its the TT-01E chassis which mean’s you have a ton of parts you can replace and upgrade yourself.
I have the older TT-01 chassis which is what my Lancia car is built on and I love it, its very fun to drive right out of the box and once you upgrade it you can have a pretty serious machine.
The My Toy shop is located in Tilal Complex in Shuwaikh on the first floor right above Roche Bobois and Living Colors. It’s the nicest RC shop I’ve ever seen, its really big and they’re building a huge race track on the roof right next to it. They even have a section in the back where you can build your cars in and even an airbrush room.
This package is worth KD147.500 and all you need to do to win it is to leave a comment below and later on in the evening I will use random.org to select a winner. Please take the time to pass by the shop (don’t take the wife) and check out what they have. If you love cars its hard to leave without picking something up.
My Toy’s phone number is 22256707
Rules: You need to put your proper email in the email field while commenting since the winner will be contacted by email. You also need to respond to my “You Won” email within 24 hours or I will have to make another draw and choose another winner. You can only comment once, anyone caught commenting more than once will get disqualified.
Update: The post was closed for commenting at around 9:30PM.
The winner is…
It took me around 16 hours to build which is the longest its ever taken me to build a radio controlled car but it was a lot of fun and I’m finally done. I had actually completed the build last night but today I passed by the Tamiya dealer to pick up a better quality damper system which is the blue and silver object in the pictures. I still need to change the motor, add an electronic speed controller and most importantly paint the actual FJ Cruiser body to put on it but I wanted to share these pictures I took of the car frame to show you how beautiful the details in the model are. Check out the pictures below.
Here is a link to the FJ Cruiser page on the Tamiya website. [Link]
I passed by Tilal Complex tonight to check out the new Tamiya store. They opened up in Tilal back in December 2008 but recently they moved to a larger store on the first floor. I was expecting the new store to be bigger than the previous but it turned out to be like 10 times bigger and looked amazing! Seriously I was in shock. It was very nicely organized, they have stations in the back where you could go and build your car, they even rent tools. They also have a painting room with exhausts for the fumes, a small photography studio where you can take pictures of your car and my favorite section, the spare parts! They have hundreds and hundreds of parts occupying the whole right side of the shop. What I used to hate about their old store was the fact that you had to know what part you wanted and then ask the salesman to get it for you from behind the counter but now I can just browse and find parts and accessories myself.
I really really love their new store and I highly recommend anyone that is interested in radio controlled cars or plastic models to visit it. They’re located on the first floor of Tilal Complex, opposite their older store. Oh and they have this HUGE space right by the shop where they are currently building a race track.
Here is a link to their website [Link]
Their phone number is 22256707
Oh my God why didn’t anyone tell me about these!! It seems there is a whole line of Tamiya radio controlled construction trucks! I am soooo going to get these. [YouTube]
I picked up my Tamiya Lunch Box kit today. The Lunch Box is based on an old dodge van and was originally released I think in 1988. Recently though Tamiya has been re-releasing some of their “greater hits” and the Lunch Box is one of them.
Sadly I won’t be building this truck yet since I’ve ordered some parts off eBay (metal bearings / a faster motor) and they still haven’t arrived. For now I’ve started with the painting. Originally the Lunch Box is supposed to be painted yellow but I saw a guy online who had his painted military green and I decided to basically copy him. Its my first time painting and I think I’m doing good for a beginner.
I was a bit heavy handed with the spray paint at first and I am not too patient waiting for the different coats to dry but I’m still learning so I should be better the next time. I think I need to pass by the dealer later in the evening and pick up another can of paint just to be safe.
Aramex dropped off my first Tamiya radio control kit this morning. The Frog which I purchased early in the month was a ready built model but now since I really want to get into this hobby I ordered two more car kits so I could enjoy building them.
I originally wanted to purchased the Tamiya’s from the local dealer since his prices are cheaper than the Internet but both of the cars I wanted were out of stock here, actually one of them (pictured above), the Lancia Delta HF Integrale was a discontinued model so I only managed to find it on eBay. The other car, an old Dodge van nicknamed the Lunch Box was coming in the next shipment due to arrive in February but I couldn’t wait that long so I also ordered it from eBay.
First thing I did once I got my kit today was pass by the Tamiya workshop in Muthana and pick up a metal ball bearing set and some spray paint which I am going to use once the Lunch Box arrives next week. Now I am going to spend all day and put this kit together. Will post pictures once I am done. The fact that my car was delivered to me on Christmas morning makes me feel like a kid all over again.
Update: Ok it took me around 5 hours but I finally was able to put the whole thing together and take it out for a spin in my parking lot. The car is great but I definitely need to do some upgrades, first thing will probably be a more powerful engine motor followed by better grip tires and probably a suspension upgrade.
I was supposed to start off the weekend by riding out with the Desert Bike Club but couldn’t get myself to wake up at 6:30 in the morning for a 7:15 meetup. But I still managed to save the day by heading down to Bnaider. A friend of mine built an RC track at his chalet so I took two cars, my Tamiya FJ CR-01 crawler, and my Xray 808e buggy.
