TOPIC:

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.  

Here is the RTR box and the model as it came out of it.  There is sadly no art on the box, only a window onto the model itself.  The stickers are all applied perfectly and much better than I could have done.     

Here are some closeup views of the front and back to show the excellent decoration.  I couldn't have asked for better.
I left the model completely stock mechanically, but I did decide to add a simple light kit since the light buckets were there and it makes the model look a lot better.  I was able to hide the wires pretty well, and since the body does not need to be removed to change the battery they can stay neat.    

Here are a couple of final views with the lights.  It looks so good.

One big advantage to these Tamiya Expert Built models is that the stickers are perfect.  This car deserved perfection and I think it looks wonderful.  The scale is not immediately obvious when photographed alone, but look at next to it's 1.10 scale big brother.

I built my own lights system full but the wiring is not so clean

Nice