TOPIC:

Hello fellow rc enthusiast

I am new to this and have recently got a few wild willy trucks. However, I am struggling to find some information about models, volumes etc.

I am trying to find out how many versions their are of the wild willy? and how many were there built for each model?

1st SWB Year made:1982 Model Number: 58035?
2nd LWB Year made 1982: Model Number: 5835? - is this the same model number as the SWB? How many where built?
3rd WR 02 Wild Willy 2 Model Number: 58242 Year made: 1999 - Do the latest version i.e 2019 share the same model number?
4th Metallic special 2000 Model Number: 49337 - How many were built?
5th Wild Willy 2 XB ("expert built", i.e. factory finished) Model Number: 55743

I am very new to this so more than likely I've got some of this information wrong. If anyone would be so kind to shed some light on how many were manufactured for each model and what the correct manufacturing year dates were and model numbers please?



Thank you

Welcome on board

Thank you

Welcome to TamiyaBase!
Here is some reading you can do on the two different Wild Willy original versions:
tamiyabase.com/...body-parts
tamiyabase.com/...s-versions

And here is something about Tamiya model numbers:
tamiyabase.com/...-explained

And finally, have a look in the Model Database and search for "willy" and you will see all the Wild Willy models to date:
tamiyabase.com/tamiya-models
(The database does not cover XB models, yet)

Tamiya has never released any information on production numbers, so we simply don't know.
But, I don't think is a stretch to say that the 58035 SWB is the rarest of them all.

-Lars
PS: let us see some pictures of Wild Willy's !

Brilliant!!! So helpful and interesting.

I have some of the Wild WIlly 2, a metallic one and a LWS M38. I will take some photo's this week and put them up.

Thank you so much

As Lars said, there are no production figures available from Tamiya, in fact from reading Shunsaku Tamiya's autobiography it looks to me that 1/35 armour is what the company are primarily interested in, mini 4WD racers are where the most sales come from, and RC is a bit of a sideline.

From looking at eBay sales of vintage SWB Wild Willys, LWB cars, and the Willys Wheeler for a number of years the ratios are 20/60/20, meaning there are 3 times as many LWB jeeps as SWB ones, but the Wheeler sold as many as the SWB jeep. How that matches up to the actual number of kits sold new is impossible to say. You go through all the vintage Wild Willys and Wheelers on TC , I can't think of any other publically accessible data source that has anything close to the depth or reliability

Oh great, thank you very much. It's interesting that their seems to be three times as many LWB. Makes me want to try even harder to get my hands on a SWB.

Thanks again

My count on account of purchases over the last year's 4swb, 5lwb and 4 wheelers. So that would mean I am 10 lwb short