TOPIC:

So I bought what seemed to be a fairly complete 934 body set, the first rc car Tamiya ever put out.
I've always wanted one of these, but even if I'd bought a NIB, I'd never take it out of the box and a good built example is basically all done.
I wanted a build a I thought with this it would just be a long haul.

So when I saw this on eBay, I thought that looks like a good starting point.
I think it cost about £70, so it was fair enough.

I picked this up in November 2019.

I'd had the 935 back in the mid 80's. They are beautiful kits.

Next up came a NIP steering and gear box set. This is about a week after buying the body.
I never expected to still find bits like this NIP to be honest.
The wheel stopper set came from Tony's Tamiya Parts.

 

Next up came a NIP wheel set. These were quite steep price wise. So I was very happy when my offer of roughly half the asking price was accepted. Sometimes it pays to try a cheeky offer, he obviously put on a cheeky buy it now price.

The MSC is a NIP, but the type that came with the 935.
I've seen a couple original ones come up for sale, but the timing has always been bad.
The white sill came from Rob ( Purple ). All those small bits are all welcome.

January 2020 and I managed to get a complete glass set. The original has a green tint, but I can't say I've ever seen a full set come up for sale. Plus I think I got this for about £18.
The big scale kits are a good source of spares.
Then we jump to February 2020 ( little did we know ).
I bought another NIP part, the metal battery holder. The seller contacted me, " do you need anything else ".
So by luck this led to getting the chassis, 2 sets of tyres, gears, pinions, motor, catch pins and some other stuff.
So much for this being a long term build !!!!

I got a complete bushing set off another seller on eBay. In some ways one of the more expensive bits all things considered. I don't fancy shelling out £25 to often for these.

Ooohhhh Al that smells good. Congrats

Lovely to see a rescue of the first one (y)

So early 2020 and I was on a roll getting parts for this Porsche. I managed to get the front bumper. I always thought this would be the hardest part to find.
Its interesting to see this being the only time Tamiya used a wire front bumper, but that this idea then got taken up for rear bumpers on the early racing cars and the Sand Rover / Holiday Buggy ( I think these are the last cars that had the wire bumper).

I know reproductions have been made of these. So I really only have the sellers word this is original. It's basic engineering at this point, so I wouldn't personally be able to tell the difference and this will only ever be the only one of these I own.

I started cleaning up the chassis. I just think a good clean and a polish by hand is enough I think. Polished on the left and untouched on the right.

A very simple chassis, but I love this design.
I know some people are far more knowledgeable than I'll ever be, but I'm sure this design was picked up / copied by other manufacturers at the time. I'm sure I've seen early Nichimo cars that look very similar to this.

And I think hopefully the final bits for this build.

The chrome head light holder and small glass bits ( from a Big Scale kit ), but as the moulds are all the same, should fit fine.

The W tree was reused for the Tam Tech model.
What I don't understand is why Tamiya just remoulded this exactly as it had been. They normally remove the parts no longer necessary, which is really annoying when we wish they'd left the torsion bars on the XR311 parts tree.
They've had a few opportunities to really help out people who restore early cars and they haven't, so this one was just puzzling.

More little details from a Big Scale kit. I got this just in case ??

And last but not least, the original dry cell battery boxes. These pop every now and then. They come in black and white. I have no idea why, I don't know if they used a particular colour on certain models as these came in the 935, 936 and the first Countach model. I don't think they were in any subsequent kits.

So at this point I think I have everything to produce a good version of the 934 RSR , with the exception of the speed controller.

Thanks.

Very very nice Al. You'll build a legend. And you have the cells boxes.

Cheers Flo, as with all my builds the aim is to have as good a version as I can build at the end. And hopefully as close to the original as I can get.

Wonderful bit of rescue Al!! Looking forward to more pics as the body work comes along.