Tamiya Grasshopper

2006/02/24 Update: My review of the Grasshopper reissue is available, if that’s what you’re looking for.

My first car was a Tamiya Grasshopper.

I think I remember what got me interested in R/C in the first place. Here’s the story: my Mom was working at a hobby and toy store and one of her co-workers was into R/C cars. The one he showed me was a Tamiya Lunchbox, a monster truck with a Dodge van body. It was so cool! I never got to drive it or anything, but it just looked so cool! I knew this was gonna be something I had to get into!

Before I got the Grasshopper, though, my Dad and I looked at the Tyco cars and went to Radio Shack to see what they had. Let me tell you, there was no comparison! The Grasshopper was much faster, a little bigger, and built to take the damage. The Radio Shack cars were better than the Tyco ones, but were still made of cheap plastic and would have almost definitely been broke within a week. It became obvious what “toy” R/Cing was and what “hobby-quality” R/Cing was.

So, for my 11th birthday (May of 1987), I told everybody I wanted an R/C car. I asked everyone for money to put towards it. In the end, I had enough money for the Grasshopper (about $90, I think) and most of a Hitec Challenger 250 stick-type radio (about $65). Never fear, my Dad was really into this idea of having an R/C car, so he kicked in the rest of the money for the the radio, a ProTech 702 charger ($55, I think), and 1 battery pack ($25). Looking back, I’m sure when he bought that stuff for me, he thought he would get to drive it more.

I remember when I first had the thing running (without the body, minutes after having it assembled), I tried to drive it in the house. Who knew it would go that fast?!? I didn’t mean to smash into my Mom’s foot…

Performance And Such

Looking back, that car was pretty bad. There were no front shocks—just some springs and screws; the steering system was direct drive, a killer on the servo; and the rear suspension was almost like a high-tech, heavy duty version of something from an on-road car. But like I said, it was much better than the Radio Shack stuff. For it’s time, it was considered an excellent entry-level car. In fact, the hi-tech cars of the time (the original RC10, Shumacher Cat) really can’t compete with today’s entry-level cars—things have progressed that much.

It was so much fun to drive! I trashed the Grasshopper. A few days after I had it running I broke the front bumper into 2—(I think) that night my Dad came home with this super-cool indestructible thing. (On a side note, I still have the bumper, but the Grasshopper is long gone.)

The Grasshopper lasted me a number of years—about 5 or 6, I think. But over that time, it got some monster truck tires (from a Lunchbox), a used RS-540 motor (it came with an RS-380!), one new chassis, a number of paint jobs, and some oil shocks in the rear. Wow, the only thing I ever needed to replace on it was the chassis (rear suspension mounts broke), Tamiya makes good stuff. The closest you can get to one of these (as of 1998) is a Tamiya Super Hornet or the Grasshopper II—which really isn’t anything like the original Grasshopper. If you want something like my “Monster Grasshopper”, Tamiya has released a car called the Mad Bull. It’s basically a Grasshopper II with Lunchbox tires, pretty cool.

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