How Many RC Cars Do You Have?

[Midwest_Mudder]

I only have 7, 2 rc10gts, 1 rc10t, an exceed truggy, a losi aftershock, a losi lst2, and a custom sandrail thats based on traxxas suspension/transmission. i dont wanna go much higher than the 7 i have, it already looks like a rc graveyard in my room...

[Atlas]

A lot of parts, but not one completed car...

[jacsac]

I have about 30 cars that I consider mine. The rest are someone else's I just haven't meet him/her yet.

[victor_cathedral]

I have about 30 cars that I consider mine. The rest are someone else's I just haven't meet him/her yet.

lol

[Bob-Stormer]

i here bob stormer of stormer hobbies has 1500

I don't know an exact number, as they are everywhere. In boxes, in offices, storage, on shelves, in several buildings we have. I've got 3 RC10's on my desk as as we speak. One building has 300 linear feet of shelf on the one wall for old cars, it's packed. It seems if I count what's on it, it's generally in the 200 car range, and I use that to gauge the rest of the shelving and storage. You know that TV show "Hoarders"? Yea, it's that level of a problem. I found 2 vintage RTR Leisure cars last week I didn't even know I owned. That seems to happen a few times a year. After I look at it for a while, I'll recognize it, but I completely forgot about it in the mean time.

Just the rc10, as an example, I think it's close to 60, I know I counted 30 on one shelf I was looking at today. Not all of them are shelf queens. Lot of my stuff gets used or raced, then retired. to my credit, or Discredit, depending on your point of view, I'll take new in the box cars out of the shrink and build them. I love them, and they are for me, and I can't enjoy them in the box. I want to see them, and hold them and be able to imagine the design process and hand them to other people. Can't do that with a dusty old box.

I think it's closer to 1000 than 1500, but I have no way of knowing the exact number. I'm afraid to take the time and find, and count them all, for fear it's closer to 1500. My guess is that it will be close to 2000-2500 or more before it's all over. I go through spurts of love and then disgust with the collection as a whole. Then, like a crackhead, I'll be on "the hunt" for a few weeks and accumulate 5-10 more. I suppose I add 50 cars a year, maybe more. Added 6 this week. *facepalm* And built 12 NEW cars for this summers race season, those will end up on a shelf eventually. I've never, so far, sold one car from the collection... I can't bring myself to do it. I have no idea why. The thought of selling even one car makes me sick and uneasy. The thought of the enormity of the collection makes me sick and uneasy. The thought of giving up on collecting makes me sick and uneasy. The thought of NOT buying more cars, makes me sick and uneasy. I don't get it...

This is how pitiful this is in reality. While I'm typing this out and lamenting about the problems of car collecting... I'm simultaneously waiting to snipe something on eBay. (which I just won BTW... WHOOHOO!!!!)

You guys will know if I ever die... you'll see some crazy stuff surfacing on eBay, forums, craigslist, etc.. ...lol... with any luck at all, my wife won't sell things for what I told her I paid for them. We've had discussions about that, the "what to do with the collection" scenario. Truly, I don't know how you'd go about it. What do you do, put up an eBay lot of 1 dozen MRP pro-10's? 3000 pounds of Rc10 odds and ends? 2500 vintage tires? *ugh*

I'll just add, be careful what you wish for.[/b] My guess is that anybody with over 100 cars feels the same way. I do love them all though, each of them can put a smile on my face on a bad day. I've picked up a car and thought I was looking at it for a few seconds, next thing I know I haven't moved in an hour, still looking at the car and dissecting every little piece, line, curve. Watching the geometry of things moving, it still captivates me. I've designed several cars from the ground up as well, and run them. Neat old stuff. I'll bring out some pics eventually.

I remember first getting into the hobby in late 70's and early 80's. I recall trying to hide the "second" car from my wife. the good stuff, the stuff you get after you were done buying Latraxx etc when you were in school with your paper route money. Anywho to her credit she kept up until about the 10th one. Then I was good to go.

I suppose I'm lucky in a lot of ways. We ended up in the RC business because I truly... TRULY love the little cars and want to help people do the same. I've spent my life doing it, can't imagine doing anything else. I think it's great when kids I haven't seen since they were 8 years old, at the track with their dads, will call here now as adults, and tell me they remember us being at a race they were at in the 80's. And now, they are on the phone, 20-25 years later, getting their 8-10 year old kids into the hobby asking for advice. Brings a tear to my eye, if I'm honest.

I'm a pretty lucky guy, surrounded by great people, family and doing work I still love. I'm still the most excited guy in the building when new stuff comes in. Little cars make me happy. You can't ask for more than that out of life.

[mrlexan]

I stopped counting when I got over 300 and I had more to go. That doesn't include what I could build in parts. Gotten rid of quite a few lately as well.

[Chris K]

My goal ( and just added to my bucket list!) is to go to Montana and convince Bob that he needs to show me the collection! OK, possibly NOT in that order but I'm sure everyone get's my DRIFT! And YES, little cars make me happy too!!!!

Amazing stuff; sounds like from many of the other posts on here that he's not totally 'alone' with this size of collection BUT he's probably closest - after all, Missouri and Montana are close in the list of States, right???? I imagine we could probably 'lose' about a week or more......

Bob, PLEASE keep posting and sharing!!!!!!!!!!

[RETRO R/C]

I had nearly 500 at one stage.

"Reduced" that to around 440 about 5 years ago.

Recently have sold off quite a few cars and parts, down to about 340 or so. That doesnt include parts that could be used to build cars either, god it's tragic!!

Love this hobby, has been a part of my life since I was about 5 years old when I got my first Tandy car, when I hit 7 - I started racing 1/12th..............ah man - so many memories. I am also very lucky to be still "ïn" the industry in some way, I help Venom out alot with development on select projects and new products.

This hobby has always given all the "buzz" I have ever needed - never tried drugs - R/C is my drug.

Cheers

Darryn

[bearrickster]

to many

[arf]

Bob Stormer's post is the best thing I've read this year and I just finished Moby Dick. Make it a sticky.

[Bob-Stormer]

I stopped counting when I got over 300 and I had more to go. That doesn't include what I could build in parts. Gotten rid of quite a few lately as well.

I had nearly 500 at one stage. "Reduced" that to around 440 about 5 years ago. Recently have sold off quite a few cars and parts, down to about 340 or so.

To you two guys. Do you find you go through spurts where you hate the whole lot of them and want them gone... just to clean and simplify your lives... and then, you pick one up, it puts a smile on your face and like an old pet, you can't imagine life without any of them?

[Bob-Stormer]

My goal ( and just added to my bucket list!) is to go to Montana and convince Bob that he needs to show me the collection!

I dunno that there's much to look at. Maybe I get jaded by it. It's more the "scenario" than any one particular car. Because most are not displayed properly, etc. Just a big wad of stuff. I have been slowly migrating more and more of those kinds of things over to our other building. Kind of getting everything related to the collection more centralized and in one location. We've been renting various storage facilitys for years. I'm trying to get a few of those emptied out and move everything closer. I know the one storage building was running us $400 a month, and we've had it since 1993. $400 a month doesn't seem all that bad until you do the math and realize we spent $86,000 storing old RC car parts in that building. Just my personal old stuff. Well that's just silly, and I'm gonna nip that in the bud here in the next 30 days.

I might, "MIGHT" take a picture of the main sort room where I'm working on things for the collection right now. it is utter chaos, and I'm a bit embarrassed by it's state at this point. But I had to spread things out somewhere and things are heading in the correct direction. It's my personal stuff from the last 30 years of RC. Stuff I stuck off to the side, or thought I'd save for another day, or projects that didn't get finished. It appears I'm really good at getting all the parts for a project stuck aside, and saved. Because there is a lot of that scenario. Right now, I'd say a solid 1/3 of the collection is in boxes on the floor of a 1500 sq foot room, it's actually our test track area that we don't use in the summer, so it's a good time to do it. I've been spending a few hours on it every day for the last couple months. Just moving boxes from one building to another. Sorting parts from one box to another. Right now, I've got a lot of old Schumacher offroad stuff spread all over in there, sorting it. I'm getting close to having that organized. I got my old AYK about sorted the last few weeks before that. Just takes time.

You can see some of my direction and ideas during the sorting. I had a thing for the Kyosho Pegasus for while... looking back, I have no idea why. I have a fair amount of that, that I'm going to just sell off. Doesn't appeal to me right now. Pegasus... what was I thinking? there was a time when I was trying to collect everything... you just can't do it. I found a load of stuff I was saving the GS sonic 1/8 road car... not so interested in that at the moment either.

I had a friend of mine that's not related to the hobby came by last week. He walked into the sort room, put his hand over his mouth and said, "oh my God..." "where do you start?" Which was kind of my point exactly. I just keep poking at it. My son makes fun of me when we're over there. I'll hold up something I haven't seen for a long time all excited, like I found the ark of the covenant... "You know what this!!!!!!!?" and the answer is usually, "Yea, dusty and old, like the 500 other things you've held up in the last hour...get back to work" ...lol... He's been a good sport about helping organize and sort stuff. he's actually a very good sorter and organizer. I suppose that makes sense, technically, it's all he's ever known too. This is "normal" to him.

I do feel that in the next 5-10 years, I'm going to make a real effort to get everything out, and shelved and categorized. Right now, and after posting some body pictures here, I realize I have an enemy, dust. Never really paid that much attention to it before, normally it's just cars on shelves, I don't put a lot of thought into it other than that. Turns out that old thick dust is hard to clean, and takes the fun out of looking at stuff. So now, how do you display cars without dust? Can't leave it in a bag, it defeats the purpose of showing it. Even things in glass cases get dusty... frustrating. Things in cases are also hard to remove and show people.

It's the parts that are the real time and space killers. I think somebody else mentioned the parts as being a big problem for a collector. i never put much thought to until this week. I might have enough parts to build another 500-1000 cars. Never really thought about it. Evan was just in my office (sales manager here), I asked him if he thought there was another 1000 cars worth of parts in boxes and storage. He thinks a solid 500 or so. So it's hard to say definitively.

[scr8p]

hey bob, while you're "organizing", keep an eye out for an HPI Jag 1/10th scale body for me.

[THEYTOOKMYTHUMB]

I've picked up a car and thought I was looking at it for a few seconds, next thing I know I haven't moved in an hour, still looking at the car and dissecting every little piece, line, curve. Watching the geometry of things moving, it still captivates me.

My wife catches me staring at a car all the time. She doesn't bother asking why anymore. She'll come home to find me on a day off sitting in the recliner, jammin some tunes and just holding a car pondering over it...

As for organizing your collection "Ain't nothin' to it, but to do it." (sorry I had a manager at a grocery store I worked at in college that said that all the time. I still find myself saying it in my head when I'm about to begin a daunting task at work or in the yard...

If it were me (and oh how I wish it was ) I’d start by simply listing the cars. Start in one area and list the car and a general location. Then take that list and start to break it down.

2wd off road
1.
2.
3.
4wd off road
1.
2.
3.
Etc. etc. etc…

Or you could take pics of the entire collection (say 20 feet of shelving at a time) and then identify the cars that would be in the pic. Not identifying them in the pic obviously, but by what pic they would be in. Then that would give you a quick reference to their location when it comes time to organize the list. (not sure if I’m making that clear or not )

Obviously your lists would be a lot longer and go on for pages, but getting them organized on paper would be a great aid in knowing where to go next.

As for the dust; an unfortunate side-effect of a collection that massive. Clearly total restoration and preservation is out of the question. I’d say shop-vac followed by air compressor is the quickest way to clean and rid some of the dust that’s already there. As for keeping it off, just run a leaf blower over everything once in a while.

I find your passion inspiring. Luckily I’m only up to about 17 built cars and a few totes of parts.

Afterthought: I’m sure you’d have plenty of local people who would be willing to help organize just for the price of getting to gawk at the collection. The only problem is that trustworthy people aren’t always easy to find…I’d love to see pics no matter what the condition of the collection!!!

[RETRO R/C]

I stopped counting when I got over 300 and I had more to go. That doesn't include what I could build in parts. Gotten rid of quite a few lately as well.

I had nearly 500 at one stage. "Reduced" that to around 440 about 5 years ago. Recently have sold off quite a few cars and parts, down to about 340 or so.

To you two guys. Do you find you go through spurts where you hate the whole lot of them and want them gone... just to clean and simplify your lives... and then, you pick one up, it puts a smile on your face and like an old pet, you can't imagine life without any of them?

For me personally - I find myself constantly re-assesing what I have lately (over the last two or three years). I have sold off alot of my Tamiya based collection, keeping only the ones that I really love (thats still about 80 or so NIB's though!! LOL). I am, and always will be a racer at heart - so my race orientated buggy/car collection has increased rather than reduced. I run alot of my race buggies, and have quite a few NIB racers as well.

Short answer - yes - I do have times when I think I could get rid of the whole lot - but it only takes one drive, one opening of a kit box to get me back in love again!

I got to write in R/C CAR Magazine for 7 years about the hobby as well - so I guess I am just a nut case and do whatever I can to spread the good word about this brilliant hobby.

Great stories Bob.

Cheers

Darryn