DID YOU KNOW? The history of the Tamiya Boomerang and Tamiya Super Sabre! 

That's a very cool story. And super cool that you can go to a Tamiya Shop in Japan...sweet. Knowing the story behind it I think it would be very cool to come away from that shop with both kits. Awesome...thanks for sharing!

Thanks Dirk! Really looking forward to the build on this one. So you're hoping that Tamiya will do a rere of the Striker then? Was it a favourite back in the day?

I'm still hoping for a rere Striker. Sadly, it may never happen.

Thanks Addam! I agree with you 100% - The BHM HotShot II grew on me though and I have to give that credit to RCCA. They did an awesome article on the car treating it as a one off rather than a rerelease of the HotShot II. Let's just say RCCA ended up costing me some $$$$ lol - That being said so glad the original HotShot II is finally making a comeback!

Thank you!! Hope you are feeling better.

Thanks Peter! And you're right about the HotShot. It is the most iconic and it was such a fascinating design especially with only having two shocks. The rear set up is definitely quite complex.

Thanks Thomas! It’s kinda cool to go through the history and see how some of these kits came about.

It was definitely a great time in history. So many cool things were happening! And you are so right...as the new boxes started to show up in stores you kept changing your mind as to which kit you wanted to get as your first. I first got introduced to the Lunch Box when it was reviewed in an RCCA magazine. I drooled over that for so long until I could get enough money to buy it. But somewhere in there I got introduced to the Blackfoot and the Blackfoot became my first ever Tamiya! I never looked back. I ran that one into the ground. Went through two sets of hex drive shafts and the rear wheels were tilted sideways so bad only half the tire was being used. I couldn't afford ball bearings back then so the plastic bushings were wearing out the hardware. Wish I still had it but back then if you wanted to get another one you had to sell what you had to go towards the next one. Pretty cool memories that's for sure :)

@@FastFreddyRC Very similar memories matey! 😉 My mate had the blackfoot, and our other mate had the mud blaster. They handled so much better than my pumpkin..... but theirs were always broken! The hex drive shafts like you say were a nightmare! Wore down so quick, and always used to pop out through the rubber gators when the trailing arms were fully compressed.... combine that with the fundamentally flawed 'warping' diff plates/jumping and shredding bevel gears.... nightmare! Obviously issues Tamiya never addressed to this day.... I have a re re blackfoot, two re re Monster Beetles, an original Monster Beetle, and a mud blaster..... all suffer the same issues! But I love those cars despite their issues, and invested heavily in my runner beetle to make it better (MIP ball diff, alloy dampers, limiter on the trailing arms to stop drive shaft ejaculation, metal chassis stiffener/body post bar, superstock bz motor, 2s lipo, bearings etc) It's now bombproof, reliable, and great fun! Yep, those first cars hold so much sentiment..... gutted you let yours go! 😞 Like you said, we all ran them into the ground, and had great fun doing so..... no shelf queen's in those days! Luckily, I still have my original pumpkin..... and restored it a few years back, a couple of videos on this are up on our channel. Happy days no less, and the nostalgia is strong! 👍 👍 👍

Ah...thank you for bringing this up...I suppose I could have mentioned it, and maybe I should have just to be completely fair. However, the BigWig to me just isn't a HotShot. If you look at the original HotShot, the Boomerang, and the ThunderShot variants, they are all basically revised versions of the original chassis. If you took the bodies off it might take a minute to determine which chassis you were looking at. The BigWig went to a completely different bathtub design where the battery sits inside the chassis and doesn't look anything like the original HotShot Chassis. Some say the BigWig was supposed to be the next SuperShot but the SuperShot or Super Hot Shot as it's named today, still has a greater following. I'm not even sure why they bothered calling the BigWig a variant of the original HotShot chassis. It's completely different. It's like calling Blackfoot III part of the Blackfoot family. They should have called this truck something else entirely because it literally was a completely different chassis from start to finish and they just slapped a Blackfoot body on it and called it a Blackfoot - but I digress :)

@@FastFreddyRC Go to tamiya legends channel where he talks about the super sabre release and has all five buggies in front of him except the hotshot 2 which is six.

If you understand what a chassis is, then no, the Bigwig is not. The Bigwig Chassis is completely unique and only shared the rear gearbox and. Even the shocks are completely unique. It was meant to be another option for a 4wd buggy. At best it's a distant cousin.

Thank you for that. I like your description...distant cousin at best. @@bespincustompropsbombarta8300

Thanks John! Very cool! The BigWig is another interesting car because the chassis it uses was only ever used on the BigWig. Odd for Tamiya that's for sure. They usually like to recycle chassis for awhile.

Very cool! And I hear ya…wish I’d never sold my original Blackfoot. I ran that thing into the ground but it would be great to still have it all these years later.

Thanks Trey! It really is a pretty cool history of these kits. Really excited for this one...it was definitely on my list back in the day so it's cool to have it finally return!