What is the first kit you ever built?

[xjtorc]

We all remember cracking open the box of our first build. High on the scent of unmolested plastic, metal, and rubber. Nervous to mess up yet too excited to stop. You’ve never been as anxious and excited as you are in this moment. You’ve lost all sense of space and time. Before you know it, your work of art is complete. Your emotions shift to a bittersweet symphony of highs and lows as you accept the fact that your quest is complete, but you must now go put scratches on your Mona Lisa.

I want to hear some tales of first builds.

My first was the OG Axial SCX10. The year was 2009 and production scale crawlers were a new thing. 1.9” wheels and tires were a blasphemous shock to the crawler community which was obsessed with 2.2 comp crawlers at the time. Crazy how things have shifted! Growing up in the hobby, I had zero interest in ever building a kit. Even as an adult, when I built this one, I was reluctant going into it. Once I banged this SCX10 out, I was addicted to the build process. 16 years later, the build is 90% of my fun.

 

[WickedFog]

I built my first RC in 1983, after watching my dad build a huge balsa trainer RC airplane a few years earlier. I can still smell the epoxy from watching him and my older brother build that airplane. I remember the first time he fired it up in the kitchen lol.

My first was a Marui Big Bear.

I painted mine black, and cut the side windows out and glued some plastic webbing in their place, which I cut from a mesh bag my dad got from the seed store. They made perfect window nets.

The first version of the truck would turn out to have bad plastic for the spur gears, and they would melt within minutes of use, so I maybe had a total of an hour run time with it after buying 3 different spur gears. Being 13 years old, it was hard to spend money fixing it, knowing it would fail again. So I gave up on it and started saving for something better. 3 years later I bought a Javelin, and have been a big Kyosho fan ever since.

 

[Chubaka]

We all remember cracking open the box of our first build. High on the scent of unmolested plastic, metal, and rubber. Nervous to mess up yet too excited to stop. You’ve never been as anxious and excited as you are in this moment. You’ve lost all sense of space and time. Before you know it, your work of art is complete. Your emotions shift to a bittersweet symphony of highs and lows as you accept the fact that your quest is complete, but you must now go put scratches on your Mona Lisa.

I want to hear some tales of first builds.

My first was the OG Axial SCX10. The year was 2009 and production scale crawlers were a new thing. 1.9” wheels and tires were a blasphemous shock to the crawler community which was obsessed with 2.2 comp crawlers at the time. Crazy how things have shifted! Growing up in the hobby, I had zero interest in ever building a kit. Even as an adult, when I built this one, I was reluctant going into it. Once I banged this SCX10 out, I was addicted to the build process. 16 years later, the build is 90% of my fun.
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Love it. Always wanted this version, the silver wrangler, and the power wagon bodies.

My first kit was the scx10ii 2000 xj in 2015 or 2016. I did completely tear down a vxl stampede in 2009 before running. They all came in lipo mode and I needed to turn lvc off. This was before the hobby shops and most trx employees knew about it.

 

[WoodiE]

I think the first kit I built solo was the HPI Savage.

 

[xjtorc]

Love it. Always wanted this version, the silver wrangler, and the power wagon bodies.

My first kit was the scx10ii 2000 xj in 2015 or 2016. I did completely tear down a vxl stampede in 2009 before running. Tgey all came in lipo mode and I needed to turn lvc off. This was before the hobby shops and most trx employees knew about it.

Looking back on it, I have no idea what I did with that kit body. Pretty sure I gave it to a buddy.

 

[Lostinthewoods86]

Slash ftw son actually built it for the most part.

 

[xjtorc]

Slash ftw son actually built it for the most part.

Slash kit is a fun one!

 

[ferrebee88]

My first kit was the Axial Yeti 1/10. I was so stoked until I started driving it and realizing the terrible design flaws!

 

[DavidB1126]

AE B74.1D

 

[OnwardGuinevere]

First kit build for me was in high school, early 2000s. The Associated RC10T3. recently picked up the OG body from JConcepts too, can't wait to paint that one up. For now, she remains the shelf queen Nightmare truck.

 

[fstnd]

I'd love to buy a nitro kit one day, but it'd probably be with my own money, because they're expensive
Something much less expensive -and very kit-like- was the build I did not long ago on a chassis that's never ran. It was an unfinished kit from someone's grandparent who passed away. I had to put it together without any instructions lol

if this counts as a kit, it'd be my first one

 

[Suburban_Hooligan]

my first kit was a Kyosho Stadium Baja back in April 1998. i wanted a Tamiya Blitzer Beetle but they didn't make it anymore. in shop class one day a friend had an RCCA magazine. i got to flipping through that and saw an ad for the Kyosho and was like, oh yeah, i need that. talked my dad into taking me to the local hobby shop. low and behold they had one in stock! it was like $120 or $140 i don't remember. came home and spent 2 days after school building it on my bedroom floor. borrowed i think it was $60 from my parents and went back to the hobby shop 4 days later to buy radio gear, a battery and a charger. installed the radio (JR Python) got the mechanical speed control set up. painted the body. and that was literally the weekend that kicked off spring break. so guess what i did for a week?

 

[9x19]

Tamiya Wild Willys, while stationed in Korea in 1983-84

Followed shortly by the Tamiya Hornet

 

[Guest D]

A Lunchbox a long time ago.

 

[Tunedfrog]

Stampede 4x4.

 

[CertifiedMike]

Tamiya Hornet. I was early teens when I built it. Had a twin stick Futaba radio and hard pack nimh battery packs that weighed about 5 lbs a piece!
It was a PERFECT first buggy!

 

[Warby]

My first kit was the 1/10 Capra. Fun build, fun and very capable rig.

 

[RudyF6]

Kyosho Optima.
When it was new the first time!

 

[332_RC]

Tamiya Boomerang in 1986. I was 11, saved my money cutting grass & put it together myself.

 

[Kratonwatch]

Kraken Vesla.5 electric. Some quirks along the way, but nothing the community couldn’t help me work through.