The Dickie Porsche 956 Turbo is a radio controlled model, manufactured by Taiyo of Japan, and released into the local German market by Dickie Toys in 1985.
For the full story, check out the 1985 Taiyo Porsche Turbo (Global) page.
Turbobeschleunigung!
The most striking feature of the Porsche 956 Turbo is it’s ‘Turbo Boost’ feature, the first instance of Taiyo products using this designation prior to the ground-breaking 1986 Taiyo Jet Hopper. Despite its reduced capacity (7xAA instead of 8xAA), this will still have been the most powerful Taiyo R/C car released at the time.
Based on the real Porsche 956 Turbo, the Taiyo manufactured R/C car looks fairly close to the original, although the limitations of Taiyo’s engineering at the time was evident with the ‘boxy’ shape of the core chassis. This would be improved in the later model 1987 Taiyo Porsche 962C and it’s RadioShack version also manufactured by Taiyo, and which some people (including myself) consider to be the best version out of them all.
Features and Performance
The Porsche 956 provided excellent on-road performance for 1985, in the pre-Jet Hopper age, with Full Function remote, 8.4V with ‘Turbo Boost’, Slick Racing Tires, 2-Speed Gearbox, and a good quality stick controller.
There is no mention of a top speed on any versions packaging, through based on the specifications we’d say around 20km/h (12mph) is probably close.
Recommendation
If you are a collector in Europe or Germany, perhaps this Dickie Toys 956 Turbo is the one you are looking for. As for us, we’d go for the Global/English version, or even better, that insane looking RadioShack 962C Turbo!
We’d also highly recommend checking out Wolf Architects Review of the Porsche 956. We’ve asked them for any confirmation of the 1983 year, but regardless it’s an excellent resource.