Tonight I got to thinking back over the time since we first took possession of a Tamiya HotShot back in 1984, and about some of the most influential cars released in the intervening 25 years.  Here’s my top 10 most influential EP cars, 5 each in on-road and off-road:
1. Team Associated RC10: Without question the most significant 2wd offroad buggy of all time.  The first RC10 combined an alloy chassis, 6-gear transmission, ground-breaking suspension and dominated 2wd racing for years.  It redefined the category, and that is a rare thing.
2. Schumacher CAT: The first short wheelbase CAT, released in the mid ’80s was a stunning piece of engineering.  Complex? yes.  Twitchy and hard to drive fast? Yes.  Breakthrough design principles throughout? Absolutely.  A stretched version of the CAT won the 1987 World Championships in hands of Masami Hirosaka, starting a run of 4wd belt-drive world champions that stretched unbroken until the middle of this decade.
3. Losi JRX2: The Losi JRX2 emerged in the late 80’s and signalled the beginning of an intense rivalry that has stretched 20 years, and into EP onroad and now GP offroad – Team Associated vs Team Losi.   It is the R/C  equivalent of Holden vs Ford, and this is the car that started it.  Its 3-gear transmission was awesome, and 5-link rear suspension totally out of the box.  It quickly spawned a long wheelbase child with more conventional rear end, but the JRX2 will always be the car that started it for Losi.
4. J-Concepts BJ4:  When Jason Ruona and Brad Reelfs pulled the basics of a Team Associated TC3 touring car and added offroad suspension, nobody could foresee what would happen.  Initially intended as a one-off vehicle, and finishing 13th at the 2003 World Championship, the BJ4 went into serious production, and a reshaped BJ4 Worlds Edition captured the coveted world crown in 2005.    It was the start of the rebirth of shaft-driven 4wd buggies, and eventually resulted in Team Associated releasing its on B44 chassis, based heavily on the BJ4.  4wd technology had advanced little in the preceeding 5 years, and the BJ4 changed that.  The B44, Kyosho ZX5 and Hotbodies D4 all follow the design principles established by Ruona and Reelfs.
5.Team Associated RC10T2: When racing Trucks emerged from the US onto the Australian scene in the early 90’s, it was the Team Associated RC10T and Losi JRX-T doing the battling.  Both were great cars, but were essentially converted 2wd buggies.  The 1995 RC10T2 was to my mind the first serious racing truck.  Still closely related to the RC10 Worlds buggy of its era, the T2 added revised suspension and a lower ratio stealth transmission.  The T2 won a lot of races and was a fabulous racing truck.
6. Tamiya TA01: Tamiya have a knack of starting things.  Their first scale touring car, released in the early-90’s led to an eventual revolution in on-road R/C racing.  Prior to that time, 12th and 10th pan cars dominated, with just a little racing of converted off-road buggies (in a class named “Super Tourers”).  The birth of scale tourers changed everything, and resulted in what has perhaps been the most competitive EP class of all time – with a long list of manufacturers trying to win in this class that still holds our attention.
7.  XRAY T1: When Juraj Hudy brought the T1 to market in 2001, the XRAY empire was born.  The T1 itself wasn’t anything out of the box, and some would argue that XRAY are better at refining, than redefining – but nontheless, this was their breakthrough car. XRAY are one of the “big three” in R/C touring car racing (together with Tamiya and Hotbodies) and from this first T1 platform birthed what has perhaps been their most successful chassis to date – the FK05.
8. Team Associated TC3: No list of influential touring cars could exclude the TC3.  The shaft-drive masterpiece from probably the winningest EP manufacturer on the planet dominated  EP touring for years after its mid-late ’90s release.  Efficient, effective design spawned a host of copies – with manufacturers all over the world abandoning belt-drive transmissions inherited from EP offroad buggies in favour of the shaft drive.  The little changed TC4 continued to be competitive until the 2007 release of the TC5.
9. Tamiya TRF 414: The company that started it all, captured its first ever R/C car World Championship when Thailand’s Surkarn drove his TRF 414 to the 2002 Championship win. The 414 series emerged from the 404 project and was perhaps Tamiya’s first ever genuinely competitive competition oriented chassis.  It has been followed since by a long line of descendants – with two more World Championship wins coming the way of the Japanese manufacturer from the talent of Marc Rheinard (TRF 415 2004; and TRF 416 2008).  Those who watch such things always knew that when Tamiya got serious about racing, it would be a force to be reckoned with.  Tamiya have since released a successful EP offroad buggy (the 501) and are currently working on 8th GP buggy prototypes.
10. Losi Street Weapon: When Team Losi released their first 4wd offroad buggy in 1997 (the XX4), it was followed quickly by the Street Weapon.  This car isn’t in my list because it was necessarily globally successful (though it was) but more because it represents the crossover between 4wd offroad and touring cars.  Sharing much of its platform and nearly all the drivetrain with the XX4, the Street Weapon was Losi’s introduction to EP onroad, and demonstrated that a shared platform made sense.  Followed later by the XXXS, JRXS, and JRXS Type R.
There are many other fine chassis over the years, and some around now (like the CAT SX ) that might well be considered classic chassis that changed the design direction of the industry – but that’s a discussion for the future.
For now, how would your top 5 in each of EP on-road and off-road differ, and why?