TOPIC:

A new project (like I don't have enough unfinished ones already) arrived today - it's a Spital Trial 12 ... I guess that means it's meant to be 1/12 scale, but it's not that far off Sand Rover size, so more like 1/11th. This was one of three Spital Trial 12 cars listed on eBay by the same seller, this looked the most complete/best one.


Before I start on the pictures, a couple of tangents to go off on ...

First, I can't find much info on Spital on t'internet ... there are a few cars on TC as well as an exploded diagram, but not much else. I did find the manufacturer's site www.spital.co.jp/ , the text translates as:

Google wrote:

Announcement

Since 1973, We have been open RC manufacturers, home-use game machine peripherals, as peripherals manufacturer PC. Drives out July 17, 2009, was closed down and that the phase. Thank you for your patronage over the years.

With regard to the sale of the product Supitaru, NS Technology Co., Ltd. We deal in.

Industry Co., Ltd. (C) Supitaru

So that means they no longer make RC cars?

Anyway - note "Supitaru" ... from what I understand of the rules of "Engrish" (L becomes R, you can't end with a consonant so add a U, and so on), "Supitaru" is the correct "Engrish" pronunciation of Spital


Also, I need to mention the Banana Splits ... for anyone that means nothing to, check out the Wiki article , the theme tune on youtube :



and this plushie of the least nightmare inducing Banana Split, Fleegle the Beagle, on ebay:




If you watched the theme tune/intro, note the scenery in the last second or two - this is the Warner Brothers lot in northern California, which has also doubled for:

- Endor in the "Ewok adventures" movies
- Vietnam in John Wayne'2 "The Green Berets"
- Korea in "MASH"
- the Georgia woods in the Dukes of Hazard (season 1, episode 5 onwards)

amongst many others. Seriously, I recognise the hill


If I've got my nested parenthesis in order, I need to go back to the Banana Spilts, then "Supitaru" ... then the pictures... I'm thinking yellow (possibly pearlescent) yellow paint, flames on the side, a smaller Banana Split for the driver, and a nice "Supitaru" logo on the back

I think I need a break before I get to the photos

Moving on , the first thing to note is the colour... at first it's tasteless enough to be a period mid/late 1970's colour ("The 1970's: the decade that taste forgot" - also known as "The Cleave Age" ) - but I suspect it's acutally a more recent colour, the one hairdressers have on their Hondas

I also suspect it's a recent paintjob - which is a bit sad really - it tends to indicate that it's yet another car that had survived 30+ years relatively unscathed, until it got lashed up, badly painted, and broken by an unsympathetic recent owner before getting sold on ebay


The next thing that struck me was the weight ... I popped a 6v flat pack & 4x AA holder in & weighed ... it's nearly 2 kilos







Damage to front wheelarch was noted in the ebay listing, but not the breakage & poor gluing. The damage to the rear I think happend in transit, due to poor packaging - it corresponds to hit taking a hit & the load going on the rear bosy mount









Driver is an ugly vacform, it's also appallingly painted & slightly melted.






Chassis is built like a brick outhouse...






MSC is something else... note the fuse "wire"





...

Motor is 540 size, and made in Japan... "KSA" brand is a new one on me though...





Front servo mount doesn't look original equipment, but the patina suggests it's a "period" mod

Front bumper is steel and is original Welds are pretty rough though...





Rear bumper is also steel. Gearbox is apparently 3-speed, but can't be changed on the move. Levers seem to be hiding under 1970's sellotape.





Chassis has been butchered on the inside, I'm not sure why as a 6v pack will fit in easily... I don't know what the original battery should have been, a small square lead/acid unit maybe?





Charge plugs aren't OE, but their addition does contribute to my lead/acid theory...





Underside is in pretty good order, consider the little wheels don't give much ground clearance ... or maybe it's so hopeless off-road it's only ever been used on tarmac





Despite it not being a Tamiya, I'm looking forward to working on this one ... I think I have an opportunity to stink the place out with graffitti remover coming up soon

Interesting project. I noticed a couple of these on ebay this week. I guess those are the other two that didn't sell.

On the Japanese pronunciation thing, you are quite correct. Without wishing to sound xenophobic, I've seen signs on hotels in Japan directing you to the "Robby" . The language does not include certain sounds, so they have to substitute others when transliterating.

As well as the one I bought, the two that were withdrawn as "no longer available for sale" (i.e. they sold outside of ebay ), the seller has two more... 5 of the same car? Now that's obsession

Martin wrote:

...
On the Japanese pronunciation thing, you are quite correct. Without wishing to sound xenophobic, I've seen signs on hotels in Japan directing you to the "Robby" . The language does not include certain sounds, so they have to substitute others when transliterating.

Engrish is funny

Check out engrish.com - I love the "flog" t-shirt

It's almost a "missing link" between electric & the style of the more common IC from the era.
Overcomplicated MSC, Tamiya would be proud! Mind you, they're still leaders in this department with the XR311 one. Can't see what you mean about the fuse wire?

I love pulling old stuff to bits to see how other manufacturers do stuff, some 50s-60s equipment gives a real feeling of dread associated with the "atomic age" - most of it was built out of plutonium & flowers & powered by a kind of magic you could never really figure out how/why it worked! My favourite for this has to be vintage electric sewing machine foot controls

eddrick wrote:

...Can't see what you mean about the fuse wire?...

It's the rusty straightened out paper clip looking "wire" to the bottom right of pic #8

Jonny, thanks for posting this.

1) Colour me stunned that Spital seem to have survived right up until 2009. I had assumed that they were an early RC company that barely survived the 1980s, let alone until just 4 years ago. Do we know of any other recent RC releases by them? All of the Spital or Sangyo branded cars I've come across have been vintage, but perhaps I'm missing something.

2) Do we have any idea yet which year the Spital Trial 12 was released?
Being electric and off-road, I wonder if it could pre-date the Kyosho Eleck Peanuts (which AFAIK, was the first electric off-roader). I'm currently restoring an Eleck Peanuts as it happens.

H.

1 - I suspect they just mention RC to add kudos to their more recent, non-rc products; a bit like Tamiya & their wooden warship kits


2- no ...

Looking at the documents I have - Trial 12 manual cover & exploded diagram / parts list, Safari GTS (rear drive IC buggy, engine hanging out the rear a la early Kyosho), and Jeep American (front drive, mid engine IC), none of them have a sniff of a date.

The front page of the Trial 12 manual indicates it can run on three types of battery. Comparing these to Tamiya products this would give rough dates of: 4x UM2 (C) cells (1976, 58001 Porsche 934), 6v Nicad (1977, 58002 Martini Porsche 935 Turbo), or 7.2v hump packs (1979, 58015 Rough Rider). Although it is possible that's a later edition of the manual with the first release being dry/alkaline cells only, and later ones being 6v/7.2v capable.

Looking at the some of the other "technology" on the chassis, the first Tamiya injection moulded bathtub chassis was on the Holiday Buggy (1980), and as for the vacformed driver figure, the earliest comparable Tamiya item would be the body of the Can-Am Lola (58021, 1980). The MSC on the Trial 12 looks cruder and "therefore" earlier than the 1977 58001 Porsche, but the first wirewound Tamiya MSC appeared on the 58005 Countach LP500s (June 1978). Tires, I guess that would be the XR311 again (1977).

Although it's tempting to think that every feature that appeared in RC was a Tamiya first, there's lots of anecdotal evidence to suggest otherwise - that Tamiya saw what was already working on the market and adapted/incorporated it into their chassis (usually adding bump steer ) - and that their designs/features were 1 to 2 years behind the curve.

We also shouldn't assume that Spital was an early pioneer of certain chassis technology either - it's equally possible they could have been a couple of years behind Tamiya.

Looking at my example of the Trial 12, I'd guesstimate the build date as some time in 1977 or 1978, before 1979 at least - the speed control has been "upgraded" to a Tamiya 6v connector, if the owner was going to upgrade the power source, surely they'd have gone to 7.2v if that was available?

The steering servo is a Futaba FP-S23 which I believe dates from 1977/1978, the MSC servo is a Futaba/Ripmax FD33M, which I suspect is much later. Nothing conclusive here, servos could easily have been transplanted from another RC, or replaced with something newer in use. I was wrong about the steering servo retainer BTW, having removed it, it looks like it's been punched out rather than sawn/filed - which suggests it wasn't a DIY mod.

The "KSA" motor is no help - I couldn't find any information on that. The manual cover says it should have a "Red Arrow" motor, but I drew a blank on that too.


Looking at all of that, that gives (in my mind at least - it may not look it, but I've spent the best part of 3 hours looking stuff up) a range of release dates of 1975 to 1982 (not very helpful), but heavily weighted towards the early end of that. I don't have any evidence to narrow it down, but if I really did have to pick a year, I'd say ... 1976/77. I know that's two

The build date of my Trial 12 I'd be more sure about confident about dating as late 1977/ very early 1978.

I have to admit to a bias here - I'd like it to be earlier rather than later. Whether it's earlier than the 1st Tamiya offroader IDK, so I've left myself some wriggle room there


I'm not au fait with the history of the Eleck Peanuts - though I have seen them & they're sort of 1/2 on my wishlist - but I was skeptical about them pre-dating the XR311 (1977) ... various web sources suggest a release date of 1978, and it was the first Kyosho electric offroader, not the 1st electric offroader, full stop (period).

If you mean 1st electric offroader that didn't fall apart during building, let alone use - I'll give you that

I'd like to see a resto thread on your Peanuts