Better late than never

The year 2016 was, around these parts, expected to be a huge celebratory 12 months of exciting new Tamiya RC releases and more classic re-releases. And yet, it never materialised. It was almost as if the company had forgotten that they had a 40th anniversary of making RC cars to celebrate.

Thankfully they didn't quite leave the whole year without anything to get excited about and very late in the year they re-released this, the Bigwig....but boy did they leave it late. So late in fact, that they didn't announce it in time to celebrate the 30 years since the release of the original, which was itself a celebration release to commemorate their 10th year of being involved with RC cars. Sometimes, it seems, the company just doesn't care too much about the numbers.

I was really happy to see this kit make a comeback. Somewhat incredibly, a little more than a few days before this one was announced, I actually sold my new built original example as I am moving away from vintage to focus on re-releases. My plan was to build my own 're-release' out of a mixture of re-re Boomerang and original Bigwig parts. Quite amazingly though, I no longer needed to begin that particular project.
This one came with a few very nice touches, including an updated photo on the box artwork of Takuya Yura, the designer of the Bigwig body, and also a special label for the motor to commemorate the re-release. Since this will be a runner though, I couldn't not have a Technigold fitted in it so I nabbed one of the few remaining MFA-RX15 motors out there....which is basically just the Technigold rebranded. Quite amazing to think that the Technigold had somehow remained in production for decades after it's initial release.