I had a pretty innocent childhood and I think a lot of that had to do with the general lack of technology that existed at the time. I'm not trying to blame the internets for everything but I think it is pretty difficult to argue that it hasn't entirely been beneficial for the youth of today. With people basing their entire scale of happiness on social media acceptance and the ease of access of what can be considered to be relatively unhealthy options such as porn and what not, lets just say that I think the 80's was a considerably more innocent time and well, that's when i was a kid.
I didn't aspire to drink or smoke or be an Instagram influencer (because IG wouldn't exist for at least another 20 years.) Technology wasn't really part of our lives, but other things were. My addiction was to remote control cars and trucks or more specifically to my "Lunch Box."
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My reason for choosing the Lunch Box was pretty simple: It was one of the cheaper models and it was considered a more of a beginners kit. You did have to assemble it and paint it and what not but for the most part there wasn't a whole lot of customization going on here.
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The chassis was made of plastic and overall it had a pretty high clearance as well as a pretty narrow wheel-base. It wouldn't occur to me that this was a relatively massive disadvantage until i started competing in local off-road tournaments later on. I suppose it didn't matter because I couldn't afford any of the higher priced models anyway.
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you didn't have to paint it yellow... mine was actually black and red
Now these are not "toys" the way that you imagine something that you would buy for a baby. These things used rechargeable batteries and could quite easily go fast enough to seriously hurt someone. The Lunch Box (which was actually one of the slower cars / trucks) could reach 25mph or 40km/hr
There were a ton of upgrades that you could buy like bigger gears and better, more robust engines, better battery packs, stainless steel bearings and digital instead of manual throttles (which were prone to failure and rusting.) All of these things cost a little bit of money and and one point or another i purchased all of them. It was probably too much to be spending on this stuff for someone who had a paper route or mowed lawns, but hey... it kept me outdoors, i was learning stuff about mechanics, and it kept me off the crack rock.
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The controllers / remotes had tremendous range on them and these things could easily end up costing as much as your car kit did. During events there were swappable frequencies called "crystals" that the race holder would distribute to ensure that no two competitors had interfering signals. Also, although it isn't necessary today, these things had enormous antennae on them that would make them as long as a fishing pole. It really was a different time but keep in mind mobile phones didn't exist yet either.
One bad thing about the controllers back in the day was the fact that rechargeable AA batteries weren't really any good at the time. So lord only knows how many 8 packs of Energizers I ended up buying between the years of 1986 and 1994... A bunch. I would imagine that they switched over to lithium quite some time ago.
brilliant beach video by Pete Wylie
The above video actually shows one of the major flaws of this kit car. It was only 2-wheel drive (rear) and because of the very narrow and short wheelbase, as well as the high clearance, the truck would frequently just do a back flip if you gunned it off the line. This would end up becoming a real thorn in my side during competitions later on.
Anyway, that was a piece of my childhood that I have extremely fond memories of and i think my parents were happy that I was extremely into it as well. Not only was it a non drinking and smoking or whatever hobby, it also taught me some things and the community that was involved in it in the sleepy little city I lived in in Virginia had a pretty dedicated group of people of all ages that were in the scene. I remember that even though were were technically competing against one another that there was a real sense of community amongst nerds of all ages at these things. Needless to say there were almost zero women involved.
I haven 't lived in the west in a really long time but I wonder if this is still a thing these days. I certainly hope so but since it isn't really computer-oriented, I would imagine there probably isn't nearly as much interest as there used to be. Afterall, we have drones now!
Were you ever into the RC scene? I haven't even thought about it in years but I think that if i ever end up moving back to the States, I'm gonna get another one :) If you have one now i would love to see it!