OptimaFan
08-03-2014, 11:25 AM
Hello! I don't know if there is a seperate "introduce yourself" topic on this forums, but as the title says, I want to say hello.
After browsing around here for a while, and seeing how serious you are about vintage stuff, I just had to register.
My name is Henk, I live in the Netherlands, and have been busy with vintage Kyosho stuff for a few years now. My first RC car was a Marui Ninja, and while decent, after a while I started eyeballing the Kyosho offerings, and mostly the Optima Mid. Being about 13 years or so old at that time, I didn't have unlimited funding, and had to do chores to save money, study hard for good grades at school, which would also yield extra "income", so I decided to go for the the entry level Optima Mid, and not the more expensive versions.
Being my second car ever, the building took a little while, it didn't help that the manual was not in my native language, but I was immediately impressed with the solid engineering, ball bearings all around (the Ninja came with nlyon bushings) low slop and silent drive train. Some classmates also got an RC Car, but it was clear the Optima was of a different level, it ran faster, longer, handled better, and ran more silent than the other 2 cars, even on the same battery.
Later I shelved the hobby, started working, living on my own, met a nice girl, fell in love, married and settled down. I had kept my RC stuff, including my boats (that's what I started the hobby with, but with no water nearby, I had switched to cars as main hobbby) stored on the attic. Then I saw a special promotion in a local gas station, with small RC helicopters for a reduced price. I thought "why not, at this price point, the risk of trying is minimal" and got one. I liked being "Radio-active" again, got a better heli (Nine Eagles Solo Pro) that could also be flown outside with little breeze, and decided to have a look at my old RC stuff again.
After bringing my main boats back to life, I looked at my cars. The Ninja would still run, the Optima was also in good shape, except, before I shelved it back then, I had fitted some upgrades to make it perform and look better. New suspension arms, not because the old ones were broken, but because new ones looked better, etc. As a result, I didn't want to chance running it and getting those new parts scratched. So, I started looking on eBay and other vendor sites, for a runner. I didn't find a decent priced Optima Mid, but I did spot an affordable Lazer ZX Sport. But to run that, I would need some spares, new body, etc. I met someone you know pretty well, Daniel Rowlands, on eBay, who was offering one of his ZX-R cars. At that time I was still on a tight budget, and decided not to go for the car, but asked if he had some spares. He was able to help me out, and having spares for my Lazer ZX Sport was mostly covered from that moment on.
But it still itched that I didn't have a Optima Mid runner. By that time I had been able to free more funds for getting vintage stuff, putting other hobbies on hold, and although my vintage Optima collection can't match what some have displayed here, I can't complain. And having some stuff still on the wishlist keeps you on the alert, right?
I will post some pics of my cars later on, either here, or in the special topic I noticed is here for it. Let's keep that vintage stuff rolling, right!? ;)
Edit: Here's a pic of my first Optima Mid:
http://www.majhost.com/gallery/Roestig/RC/optima1.jpg
More pics in the "Show us your vintage collection" thread.
After browsing around here for a while, and seeing how serious you are about vintage stuff, I just had to register.
My name is Henk, I live in the Netherlands, and have been busy with vintage Kyosho stuff for a few years now. My first RC car was a Marui Ninja, and while decent, after a while I started eyeballing the Kyosho offerings, and mostly the Optima Mid. Being about 13 years or so old at that time, I didn't have unlimited funding, and had to do chores to save money, study hard for good grades at school, which would also yield extra "income", so I decided to go for the the entry level Optima Mid, and not the more expensive versions.
Being my second car ever, the building took a little while, it didn't help that the manual was not in my native language, but I was immediately impressed with the solid engineering, ball bearings all around (the Ninja came with nlyon bushings) low slop and silent drive train. Some classmates also got an RC Car, but it was clear the Optima was of a different level, it ran faster, longer, handled better, and ran more silent than the other 2 cars, even on the same battery.
Later I shelved the hobby, started working, living on my own, met a nice girl, fell in love, married and settled down. I had kept my RC stuff, including my boats (that's what I started the hobby with, but with no water nearby, I had switched to cars as main hobbby) stored on the attic. Then I saw a special promotion in a local gas station, with small RC helicopters for a reduced price. I thought "why not, at this price point, the risk of trying is minimal" and got one. I liked being "Radio-active" again, got a better heli (Nine Eagles Solo Pro) that could also be flown outside with little breeze, and decided to have a look at my old RC stuff again.
After bringing my main boats back to life, I looked at my cars. The Ninja would still run, the Optima was also in good shape, except, before I shelved it back then, I had fitted some upgrades to make it perform and look better. New suspension arms, not because the old ones were broken, but because new ones looked better, etc. As a result, I didn't want to chance running it and getting those new parts scratched. So, I started looking on eBay and other vendor sites, for a runner. I didn't find a decent priced Optima Mid, but I did spot an affordable Lazer ZX Sport. But to run that, I would need some spares, new body, etc. I met someone you know pretty well, Daniel Rowlands, on eBay, who was offering one of his ZX-R cars. At that time I was still on a tight budget, and decided not to go for the car, but asked if he had some spares. He was able to help me out, and having spares for my Lazer ZX Sport was mostly covered from that moment on.
But it still itched that I didn't have a Optima Mid runner. By that time I had been able to free more funds for getting vintage stuff, putting other hobbies on hold, and although my vintage Optima collection can't match what some have displayed here, I can't complain. And having some stuff still on the wishlist keeps you on the alert, right?
I will post some pics of my cars later on, either here, or in the special topic I noticed is here for it. Let's keep that vintage stuff rolling, right!? ;)
Edit: Here's a pic of my first Optima Mid:
http://www.majhost.com/gallery/Roestig/RC/optima1.jpg
More pics in the "Show us your vintage collection" thread.