Wow…there were some great replies in here! I was expecting the usual 90s/00s crap, but you guys delivered some excellent 70s and 80s goodies…thanks!
When I was little, my Pit Change Charger was my hands-down favorite…but then I got my first RC…the Shinsei FireFox. At the time, there weren’t too many RCs, and the few there were had wires or only went forward/reverse-turn, which was ludicrous. OR you bought a Tamiya kit and built it yourself…or had your father build it, more likely. But those were expensive, and you had to buy a radio on top of it. But Shinsei came out with ‘reasonably’ priced ($95 in ‘81…ok $320 in today’s money isn’t totally reasonable) Ready to Run RC cars…just add batteries. The FireFox was neat, even when the gears got a little stripped, but it had no suspension and was 2wd and very little ground clearance…even though it looked like a Lamborghini LM002, it needed totally smooth road, which we did not have.
Then came the Mountain Man. It had rubber tires with air in them, not just a strip wrapped around a plastic wheel! And the tire pattern was a REAL one, from BF Goodrich! It looked like a Chevy Blazer…not ‘kind of like’, but JUST like. It had a switch on top for 2 or 4 wheel drive. And when it was fully charged, it was pretty quick. Nothing like the insane lipo/brushless/30mph goodies today, of course, but still a lot for a 10yo to handle. It was also took a beating…but most toys back then did (or could become a weapon, like my all-metal Tonka trucks).
The Mountain Man lasted as my favorite for years…longer than the BigTrak, the slot cars, the Corgis and Hot Wheels, and even the Pit Change Charger. I still have it and its original box, worn as it all is.