Small-Scale Showdown: Associated RC10 vs Kyosho Ultima

Good morning! Welcome to a special Black Friday edition of Shitbox Showdown. Because it’s a huge shopping day for a lot of people, and I thought you might be looking for a gift idea for someone (or a toy for yourself), today we’re taking a break from the “real” cars and diving into the world of radio-controlled models.

In keeping with the theme, we’re not looking at some cheap new Chinese-made thing, or even the fancy ready-to-run hobby-grade models sold at chain hobby shops. Instead, we’re going to look at two classic RC cars from my own personal collection. Mine are not for sale, but neither of these are hard to find on eBay, and both of them have been re-issued in recent years. But like a lot of my collection, my examples are kinda shitboxes.

To introduce these two, I need to tell you a little history. In the early days of the RC hobby, the first off-road buggies were based closely on scaled-down real-world vehicles, mostly VW Beetles. They were, in Tamiya’s terminology, “scale models suitable for radio control.” Predictably, however, once people started racing them, scale realism took a back seat to performance, and purpose-built designs took over. The first of these was the RC10, from Associated Electrics, introduced in 1984. It mopped the floor with the earlier scale designs, winning everything in sight, including the inaugural International Federation of Model Auto Racing (IFMAR) 1/10 scale Off-Road World Championships in 1985.

Kyosho Corporation of Japan, whose Scorpion and Tomahawk buggies had been the most successful racers of the scale designs, took notice, and in 1986 introduced its own purpose-built design: the Ultima. Advertisements for the Ultima proclaimed that it would be “The Next World Champion,” which sounded like hubris – until Kyosho made good on it, sweeping the podium in the 2WD class at the 1987 IFMAR Worlds. The battle was on, and it played itself out over and over again at local tracks for years, though the Ultima never again took the top spot at the Worlds.

So let’s take a look at two beat-up examples of these mighty warriors, and you can decide which box you would have taken off the hobby shop shelf.

Associated RC10

Chassis/drivetrain layout: 2-piece stamped aluminum tub, rear-mounted motor, RWD

Designer: Roger Curtis

Country of origin: USA

Currently available? Used (for now)

The secret to the RC10’s success is that everything–everything–is adjustable. Every bit of suspension geometry can be changed: camber, caster, toe (on both front and rear), weight distribution, everything. Gearing, spring rate, shock damping rate, shock angle, and ride height are also adjustable. There are even two possible wheelbases. And that’s before you even get to the tuning possibilities available by changing the tires. You can dial it in to any track, any surface, any situation. And its simple, chunky, modular layout means that with a few aftermarket parts, you can adapt it to any sort of racing. Whole cottage industries sprang up around this model in the ’80s, offering conversion kits to turn it into a sprint car, a stock car, or even a monster truck.

This design was so successful that Associated kept it in production for twelve years, making running changes and improvements along the way. This RC10 is a hodgepodge of leftover parts; ten or twelve years ago, I bought two large lots of broken and used RC10s, about ten cars in total, along with boxes of parts. I restored and sold nearly all of them, and built myself three examples using the leftovers, because I don’t really care about originality; I just want to drive them.

Unfortunately, that meant some compromises. There was a trend for a while of drilling “speed holes” in RC10 tubs, presumably for a tiny bit of weight loss. It also looks like hell, weakens the tub, and lets all sorts of dirt and crud in. But with new-old-stock RC10 tubs selling for three figures, and the re-issue stock from a few years ago long since dried up, you take what you can get. Eagle-eyed readers who know RC10s will also note that this is an early A-stamp tub, with a six-gear transmission, but with a later “Team” wide-track front suspension. It also has Kyosho shocks, ironically, because I had them and they work great.

This car is set up for backyard bashing, with a stock-class racing motor and a Novak speed control, both from the mid-90s. It runs better than it looks. The “clownfish” paint job, by the way, is something I started doing back in the ’90s when I was racing at a local track in Duluth. I needed something that would stand out, and be easy for a no-talent hack like me to paint with a brush. Now, of course, everyone who sees it immediately wants to call it the “Nemo car.”

Kyosho Ultima

Chassis/drivetrain layout: Stamped aluminum ladder with upper deck, rear-mounted motor, RWD

Designer: Akira Kogawa

Country of origin: Japan

Currently available? New and used

Kyosho had already introduced its Optima four-wheel-drive buggy a year earlier, using a similar suspension layout to the RC10. The Ultima built on this design, with a simpler one-piece chassis, fixed-length upper suspension links (easily replaced by adjustable links), and an evolution of the simple, durable gearbox design Kyosho had been using for several years. Like the RC10, the Ultima could be, and was, altered into all sorts of other vehicles. Kyosho kept this basic design in production well into the 2000s, underpinning a whole series of scale sports car models, monster trucks, stadium-style racing trucks, and even a sprint car, the brilliantly named Kyosho Sideways.

The original Ultima’s skinny aluminum frame, stiffened by a plastic upper tray bolted to it, lasted only for the first generation, though. Later editions used a flat plate chassis, either carbon fiber or fiberglass-reinforced nylon (called “Kelron” by Kyosho’s marketing department). I always liked the skeletal appearance of the original, especially with the plastic rollcage (almost never used by racers), so I sought out this first-generation Ultima specifically. It’s nearly all original, except for an aftermarket front bumper, new wheel bearings and some replacement hardware, a re-issue body, and a modern electronic speed control in place of the original three-step mechanical resistor.

If you want an original Ultima, you’re in luck: Kyosho has updated and re-issued several of its ’80s models, including the Ultima. For a little more money, you can even get a replica of Kyosho’s 1987 Worlds-winning Ultima, as driven by Joel Johnson. It eschews the cool-looking rail chassis and tube rollcage, but it’s closer to how most Ultimas were raced back in the day. I’ve been sorely tempted by it, but it’s a lot of money for a toy car.

Besides, I have this original one, and while it may not be the track missile that a new re-release would be, it’s a lot of fun to slide around on dried-out thirty-year-old tires. This one runs a basic Mabuchi RS540S motor, the baseline standard motor for RC vehicles for more than forty years now. It’s cheap, indestructible, and plenty of power to have a little fun.

Nostalgia is huge in the RC world, and has been for many years now. Tamiya has led the charge, re-issuing nearly all its most popular models from the ’80s, starting with the ever-popular Hornet in 2004. Kyosho took another ten years to jump on the bandwagon, bringing back its Scorpion buggy in 2014. Associated made a limited run of re-issue RC10 kits in the same year, and has just announced a “Classic Clear” edition, primarily meant for display, and there is some speculation that another run of normal RC10s will follow. And of course, since both of these kits were made in the hundreds of thousands back in the ’80s, used examples abound, ranging from new-in-box to even more ragged examples than mine. If you want to join in on the fun, there are plenty of ways to do it.

(Image credits: me, this post contains Amazon affiliate links and we may get a commission if you click on them and buy stuff).