The first Tamiya RC model car ever was the 58001
Porsche 934 in 1976. Of course it was never actually called 58001
because Tamiya didn't use the numbering system yet at the time.
It was RA1201: Radio Controlled, 1/12 scale, #1. It was an
extremely simple pan chassis with a hard body from a static model kit
and I will never own one. Luckily for me, Tamiya released the car
again in many guises over the years, many for anniversaries. Most
of these re-releases were in 1/10th scale and none had a hard
body. But in 2006 Tamiya came out with the Tamtech Gear line of
1/12th scale models using the GT-01 chassis. The 57101
Porsche 934 was the first model. As always, I was very late to
the party and they were long out of production when I was looking.
I managed to find the 56706
Expert Built version for a good price so I got that instead. I am
not usually in favor of prebuilt models, but I have already built the
GT-01 several times and Tamiya is much better at putting on the stickers
than me and I thought this model deserved to be perfect.The real Porsche 934 was a racing version of the 911 released for the 1976 season, so this was a very topical model at the time. It's amazing that they pulled 480hp out of a 3.0l flat six in 1976. This was a fast car.
The Tamtech gear series uses the GT-01 chassis which I described in detail on my Ferrari 288 GTO page. The chassis is quite capable if you upgrade the motor, but in the case of this particular model I left it stock because I thought it would be less likely to get damaged if it was slow. All my cars are runners. I added a simple light kit to mine to increase the realism.
Update: This model was destroyed in the 2022 fire. It has not been replaced.
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