The Tyco 4WD 9.6V Super Turbo Hopper is a radio control car manufactured by Taiyo (Japan) and released into the United States, United Kingdom, and other countries worldwide in 1989.
It is a successor to the 1988 Tyco 4 Wheel Drive Super Turbo Hopper.
Following the massive success of the original Tyco Turbo Hopper MK1 and subsequent models including the Turbo Hopper MK2, Tyco looked to other available models manufactured by Taiyo to maintain their momentum and success.
One of those models was the Taiyo Super Turbo Hopper, a highly rare and unique Turbo Hopper which appears to use the same chassis as the 1988 Taiyo Max Hopper 4WD.
Despite it never being as popular as the more mainstream and wildly successful 1990 Tyco Wild Thing Turbo Hopper, the Super Turbo is seen by experienced collectors as a rare and exciting oddity to own, the closest Taiyo and Tyco ever came to toy grade perfection.
The Most Feature-Packed Tyco Ever
There simply is not any other Tyco model that has all of these features in the one car, with just a few coming close.
- 9.6V Turbo 8xAA (12v with Alkaline)
- Dual Drive 2 x Mabuchi 280 Motors
- 4WD
- Both Front and Rear Differential
- Metal Front Steering Hubs
- All Round Shocks
- Detailed Driver
- Deluxe Pistol Grip controller with Hand Guard
Recommendation
The Tyco Super Turbo Hopper and a few of its contemporaries beat anything manufactured by any toy company in the last 20-30 years which was available at regular toy stores and department stores. They simply don’t make them like this anymore.
It’s a huge shame, and it’s what makes these “toy cars” such an important part of toy history, because they prove that it’s possible for high quality, high performance radio control to become such a major seller, and not only that, but so popular they’d become a part of popular culture across two decades.
It is why collectors around the world continue to bid and outbid each other for what remains of these legendary vehicles, to restore, maintain, and to keep these cars safe as proof that kids and adults alike deserve better, and will pay for better, if they’re given the opportunity.
It’s especially frustrating given how both Taiyo and Tyco ended – wiped off the map, dissolved into nothing due to a failure of their parent company and a downtrend across all markets. Who knows what we’d have gotten from these companies once brushless and lithium battery technology had became mainstream just a decade later.
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