Unboxing A Vintage Kyosho Lazer ZX RC Buggy Kit 3146 & Another Unidentified Kyosho. 

Wow dude, you really lucked out there, that Lazer ZX is awesome!!

Great Lazer ZX, I had new one in 1989, do some race with it : a little bit too heavy, and so difficult to tune, many many holes for upper links, 3 Diff, One Way pulley, Pfouuuu, But at the end one of the more addictive Kyosho buggy, the body so different make it unique. can't wait for restauration !!

Nice pieces of Barn finds you got there. The chassis on the Optima Mid is a Trinity Hopup, similar to the ones from the mids at the 87 Worlds, I can confirm it for sure as I have the same chassis on my Mid, and its not a JG, as I also have a JG on my other Mid. Hope that helps.

Now we’re talking Gavin!!!

I have one of these they are awesome! I am afraid the Lazers are as addictive as the mids to get into! 😬😁I also have a ZX-R, ZX-RR and a highly modified one! Vintage Kyosho’s are addictive. Oh I have a few mids as well 🤣

Wow,, that was my first 4wd that I competed with in our local Nationals 1992. Awesome car... 👏👏

When I used to visit Hamleys in London , in 1990-1991, it was always to go ogle a the Tamiya and Kyosho cars on the 6th floor. I lusted after a Lazer ZX. Ultimately I ended up buying a Schumacher ProCat from a small R.C. hobby shop in Harrow-On-The Hill. Paid the shop 25 pounds to build it as I was 15 at the time and wasn't confident I would build it right. After spending about 250 pounds on the ProCat I had no money left for servos, transmitter, batteries, receiver. So the ProCat just sat around unused for decades, until I finally sold it in 2019, on Ebay, to a guy in Australia. Sold for around $150. Was brand new , with a 16 turn triple motor.

OMG. laser zx. They used to be fairly common back in the day. Nippy little buggies...... Great to see one. Looks like you have a good project there.

Cool 🏎path 👌🤩

@ RCKicks, look like Yokomo 870c shocks @ 2.22 collars and blue springs no idea but silver springs might be Yoko. Cheers Fu. definitely Yokomo 870c shocks @9.00 minutes

Cool, bunch of great stuff!

Awesome Gavin! Love the Lazers looks.

Hi, Gavin! After you did the WL Toys video a couple of weeks ago, I was intrigued and looked into some of their cars. After doing a bit of research, I ended up buying the "12423", the 1/12 short course truck. I've driven it a couple of times so far, and I have been pleasantly surprised! For what it is, it has decent speed, good durability, and it handles surprisingly well right out of the box. I just wanted something to "tide me over" until I can get at least some of my vintage buggies and pan cars up and running and I think I found it. Thanks!

My first race car. Kyosho Lazer ZX. I also am in the process of restorinf mine.

Awesome buggy, I want one myself! The Lazer ZX was the sucessor to the Mid. The Mid's gears in the rear gearbox was replaced by a belt in the Lazer. The front belt, only connected to the upper pulley in rear gearbox enabled the battery to be located on the bottom plate resulting in a lower center of gravity. The Mid parts car has an aftermarket chassis I think. I have not seen the Blue shocks before.

Loved my Lazer ZXR, I bought it second had, full carbon upgrades and boxes of spares for £40 in 1996

That's a nice little haul 👍

Now you are talking. My 1st proper car. Put every Kyosho upgrade on it. Loved Kyosho so much i went on to thier Heli`s. Kyosho also had the 1st real usable electric heli,the EP. Plus top notch IC models

Ooooooooh!!!!!!! I'm so excited to see this one done!! FibreLyte / Hansel Composites used to do all carbon parts for those. Battery straps should be black frp like the chassis. The other one you got may be some unholy mismatch of parts from the ZX / ZX-R / ZX-RR

I had a ZX put a ZXR bodyshell on it ,because it was better looking. Great race car of the time looking forward to your restoration and fitting it out with electrics and batteries from the time 1.7 sanyo scrc's unfortunately sold it to a guy at the club for £15 and bought a second hand Yokomo works 93 ! Now that was a great car reckon you should add it to your list

I think that chassis is a Trinity one. They were wider than the Kyosho ones. I don't remember Kyosho having any shocks like that. They are not platinum shocks as found on TOMSE and Turbo Ultima.

Nice project car. Still have and race my actual original car, 1989 Lazer zx. I also have another one with period radio gear and I have a Zxr lined up for this years revival to run with my TRx3.

I remember back in the late 80s and there were companies that would make hop-up for almost any chassis if you wanted to race it . There were even chassis hop ups for Tamiya Hornets , this reminds me of something out of Competition Plus magazine back in the day . if it had a rubberband on the front I'd call it a Schumacher Cat . I wish i could help . Hot Trick was the company

the other car is a mid with a after market chassis. thanks you john paz

Very nice 👍👍👍~~~😁🤩😃

Ooh a Lazer ZX, Had one when they first came out that I raced and now I've got another one and a Lazer ZX-RR. Marwan does the rear tyres but not the narrow fronts so they'll be a bit hard to find.

ITS A Schumacher Cat, my friend had one, its the exact same chassis, i think

2:19 Those shocks are Yokomo 870c.

Definitely a hard car to find thats one reason my Lazer ZX-R isn’t going anywhere 😂 I need a closer look at that chassis but with that bumper and layout it looks like one of the buggy based road cars from back in the day similar to what a Kyosho slingshot was just with NASCAR bodies then again it could just be an aftermarket chassis from JIG or something similar too 🤷‍♂️

There is another version of the Optima I have never heard you mention.. The SlingShot was a purpose built dirt oval chassis based on a belt driven Optima mid. It was not a popular model and was right at the end of Optima production. Somebody posted that the chasdis was a aftermarket mod chassis. But you might actually have a really obscure version of a belt drive Optima Mid

I think you are a jammy git, lol 😂 nice haul Gavin.

Shocks look like platinums. They were on one of the mids

It could be a long wheelbase mid

Looks like an aftermarket chassis maybe a&l or fibrelyte

I have some original wheels with tyres for the ZX

Im saying that buggy is a schumacher buggy. it seem very familar to another one ive seen

Save both of them just source a lower chassis plate

Looks like the perfect project! As said below - the chassis on the MID looks like the Trinity item (so pretty cool) presumably this was a LWB conversion before the actual LWB Mids came out? (search 'Optima Mid Joel Johnson Romsey Worlds Replica' over on the RC10Talk forum ;-) ) Shocks don't look to be Kyosho to me, more like Yokomo 870C (Super Dog Fighter) - but maybe they are aftermarket Trinity to match the chassis? - Either aren't great compared with Option House 'Golds'. I have both Lazer ZX & a ZXR - The ZXR I race but fitted the ZX body to it - I now quite like the ZX shell (& cool double deck wing) which is opposite to how I felt 'back in the day'. My ZX is in the project queue - but like yours doesn't need much more than a strip/clean/rebuild & new shell!

Morning Gav, do you have any idea when you'll be doing the restoration of your Kyosho Lazer ZX, I have two, I'm going to strip them both down to parts and rebuild, one will use the best of the parts and be my shelf queen, and the other I'll use. I'd be really interested to see how you do yours and I'm interested to know how and where you will pick up parts and which electronics you'll use. What paint will you use for the body? Fingers crossed it's not too long

Did you say zx body's are available?? I can't find one anywhere, any ideas where I can pick one up??? Cheers

The only buggy that has the blue theme was the turbo rocky but that had a different chassis completely like you say it's the chassis that's thrown me aswell??🤷‍♂️

Those shocks look like old Yokomo yz10/870c shocks

The other car is a Ford Pinto

What happened to the Lazer ZX?

I think the lasers were dual belt

Gav would you like to donate the chassis off the unknown car 🤔

Did a bit of research and came across what it might be. It's a third party chassis, made by JG manufacturing probably or one of the few other third party manufacturers. So a hop up in looks more then performance because the original cracked at some point landing on the nose probably off a jump & as a slight reinforcement not having those mounting holes it forces you too mount the servo with servo tape or something else probably at the moment right ? www.tamiyaclub.com/forum/index.php?/topic/47307-jg-manufacturing-srs-for-kyosho-optima/ Mentioned here & this older ebay ad for one with a bit of a hybrid build going on, what i found first here before Tamiya club. Could be worth searching about on the other names popping up here like CRP,parmaPSE,Robinson racing etc... together with Optima & see what you might find. www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/one-kind-kyosho-optima-mid-lazer-490475236 Shocks i'm not sure, vintage kyosho platinums with the blue parts being originally black that were painted by the owner ? If those bits are metal it might have been re-anodized in that blue, but I'm thinking it's painted.