RC Cars in 2021: Are They a Waste of Money or Not - Radio Controlled World (2024)

RC cars tend to provide lots of fun and excitement to the people of all ages and experience levels. However, sometimes the people who are looking to make a purchase wonder, are RC cars a waste of money?

Since they come in models ranging from $20 to $1000 there are models for every price range making them an excellent hobby to start. From this point for many hobby level cars you have plenty of upgrade options to make your vehicle as complex as you want allowing you to scale your hobby.

For most RC cars they are not a waste of money, they can provide hours of fun and play outside which is desperately needed with our issues of television and phones.

Instead, RCs allow people to get outside, play games, and have some fun driving around learning to control their car and take huge jumps!

Thankfully many remote control cars are not overtly expensive on their own, they can be purchased in many cases for as little as $20-$30.

If you just want a toy one and scale up to $1000+ models with the adult hobby side, the be honest the Traxxas XO-1 is no joke!

Helps to Get Children Outside

Lets face it, we are fighting a battle with the wireless nature of the world we all now live in, add to this the increasing pressure of social media and to impress others we are all actually DOING less.

This is where choosing to get your kid into a hobby like RC cars and racing can help them to get outside, breath that fresh air, and start to learn some good skills related to hand and eye coordination.

Helps to Build Skills

When you begin to use a RC car the first time it may go fairly poorly depending on the time you have spent growing up using skills that benefit running a car.

Unlike when you drive a car a radio controlled car isn’t always facing the same direction as yourself, like when you are driving back towards your starting position.

This can lead to many crashes and poor sessions until this becomes more second nature, the following skills are built from needing them to fundamentally enjoy a RC car racing or driving session!

Hand Eye Coordination

One big thing to using controllers or joysticks that is commonly linked to video games is an incredible sense of hand eye coordination, the ability to know what your hands are doing without looking.

This can be vital when you are driving your RC to make sure that you don’t run into walls when not actively fully focused on your driving area that surrounds the car.

Managing to drive from a non-driving POV is a big tax on your hand eye coordination, if you fail to have quality control here the car will end up crashing.

This skill can then translate into your ability to do other things that require this kind of coordination, leading to enhanced ability in sports, real life driving, and many other spatial awareness tasks.

Learn Responsibility

Building and experiencing play with an RC car can equally help a person learn to be more responsible, you own that car so damage and loss of use directly impact the owner.

This teaches you to drive better and think about what you are doing more before attempting them, stunts are a part of racing but when you have ownership you plan and strategize it.

This makes the owner lead towards preservation and less towards just attempting random jumps, the stress of crashing and causing damage that stops function causes them to think.

This will normally expand into the other goods that are owned, they will be more cautious with cell phones, tablets, and other gear as they will find mindfulness.

Build Imagination

This is where I remember vividly as a kid, racing from the car like I was a robber being chased by the police, there was nothing as exhilarating as trying to get away from the chase.

RC cars allow you to think outside the normal, they let your creativity and imagination run totally wild and free.

The hobby versions allow this allow this feeling to grow even larger, as a hobbyist RC car has an immense amount of parts that you could purchase and install to customize.

If you get a full hobby kit you will even need to assemble almost all of the car before you could even choose to race it! You are provided with numerous parts and accessories, which allow you to customize the overall look and feel of your RC car versus others.

Now you are aware about some of the key benefits that RC cars can deliver. While keeping these benefits in mind, you can even think about giving RC cars to your kids.

Get Adults Hobby Time

One thing adults tend to fail at is just getting out and having fun, not focused on a result but just to enjoy the little things, like an evening out in the yard.

Taking on a hobby like what you get in RC vehicles allows you to focus on mechanical skills, game play, and talking with people who have similar interests and helping remove isolation.

Final Verdict: Are RC Cars a Waste of Money

You can find numerous reasons to call why RC cars are capable of delivering lots of fun and excitement to you.

Instead of calling RC cars as a waste of money, you can think about calling them as an expensive hobby available for you to engage with.

When you purchase an expensive RC car, you will be provided with the chance to customize and upgrade it according to your preferences.

All the money you spend on these customizations and upgrades can deliver worthy returns. Hence, you will never be able to call them as a waste of money.

If you are looking to get a car the ones I have below can get you an amazing level of enjoyment, these are perfectly chosen to help the hobbyist get a start!

RC Car Options Available on Amazon

Image	Manufacturer	Description	Price	Prime	Buy
TopTop	ARRMA	ARRMA 1/7 Felony 6S BLX Street Bash All-Road Muscle Car RTR (Ready-to-Run Transmitter and Receiver Included, Batteries and Charger Required), Black, ARA7617V2T1		Prime	Buy Now
Top	Traxxas	Traxxas XO-1 1/7 Scale AWD Supercar with TQi 2.4GHz Radio & TSM, Black		Prime	Buy Now
	Losi	Losi RC Truck 1/6 Super Rock Rey 4WD Brushless Rock Racer RTR (Ready-to-Run) with AVC, Baja Designs, LOS05016T1		PrimeEligible	Buy Now
TopTop	Traxxas	Traxxas 67076-4 Rustler 4x4 VXL Off Road Electric Remote Control RC Car with Remote Control for Adults and Kids, Red		Prime	Buy Now
TopTop	ARRMA	ARRMA RC Truck 1/8 KRATON 6S V5 4WD BLX Speed Monster Truck with Spektrum Firma RTR, Red, ARA8608V5T1		PrimeEligible	Buy Now
TopTop	Redcat	Redcat Racing Shredder XTE Electric Truck, 1/6 Scale, Red		PrimeEligible	Buy Now
TopTop	Traxxas	Traxxas 67076-4 Rustler 4x4 VXL Off Road Electric Remote Control RC Car Chassis Body with Remote Control for Adults and Kids, Green		Prime	Buy Now
	ARRMA	ARRMA RC Car 1/8 Typhon 6S V5 4WD BLX Buggy with Spektrum Firma RTR (Ready-to-Run), Black and Red, ARA8606V5		PrimeEligible	Buy Now

Prices pulled from the Amazon Product Advertising API on: