Vintage & Historic F1

Vintage F1 often refers to 1960's F1 cars while Historic F1's are any kit with a non-modern (say pre-1990) body shell. 

Vintage F1

Team Lotus and Big Al on rctech built a superbly detailed Vintage F1 based on a modified F104. RCF1.fr in France put together a montage video of the photos - nice work!

Vintage F1 Racing 

In 2013 A new club in the US was formed to promote a Vintage F1 racing format with; 1960's vintage body, control tyres to take away grip, no wings, modified front arms which pop off if the front wheels take a hard impact, and no moving over by lapped cars - every pass is a "hard pass". The idea is to emphasise driver control in a car with good power but limited grip. 

Unfortunately it didn't take off and the very cool VF1club.com website has been taken down. However, you can see a video of their first race meeting below:

A Vintage F1 body shell and hop up kit can be purchased from F1 RCLAB. A photo of one of their kits is below:

Historic F1

Tamiya produced the first F1 RC car kit in 1977 and since then has created a staggering range of highly detailed F1 body shells and a number of F1 chassis kits. Here are links to some of our articles on these kits and the history of RC F1:

• Tamiya Tyrrell P34 Six Wheeler
• Williams Renault FW18 (F103RS) - article includes some great photos of other vintage cars released by Tamiya including: Lotus 107B, Sauber C12, Ferrari 412T1, Newman Lola T93/00 Ford, and more.
• Tamiya - History of Tamiya F1

Here are some more photos:

And if you like the older F1 cars check out our full scale links page which has a history section.