My first hobby grade RC car was a $20 second-hand Tamiya Boomerang from one of my friends down the street.

It was a bunch of plastic and nothing competitive but I must have rebuilt it a dozen times just for fun. Then at some point I got a Motown Missile 48,000 RPM motor for it. It was a battery connector melting ballast resistor glowing riot. But eventually my parents got tired of taking me to the hobby shop for replacement spur gears... next xmas I got a rc10 graphite and never really looked back at Tamiya anything.

But it was a great low-cost introduction to how cars work and the hobby in general, super fun times.

RIP