This is the Europe Famous Car, a brilliant radio-controlled car with a Targa roof and two figurines inside. It was the first scale model that I bought in China after I moved there in 2003. I still have it and it still works.
Ultimately, I stayed 16 years in China and loved every second of it. Over the years, I amassed a large collection of model cars, ranging from cheap toys to high-end 1:18 dealer models. But there can only be one first. This is it.
The car’s design seems to be inspired by the Chevrolet Corvette, with a bit of Ferrari mixed in. The scale is about 1:18. It is made from plastic with a red body. The remote is is painted gray with a cool ‘Radio Control’ sticker. The antennas are about 30 centimeters high.
I bought this car a few days after I arrived in Beijing. I remember the moment almost exactly. It was April 2003, springtime, and I was living in an apartment in Tongzhou District in the far eastern suburbs of Beijing. On the first floor of the building was a grocacry store shop, selling all kinds of food and other necessities, including a small shelf with toys. My eyes were immediately drawn to a red car. It was just so beautiful and so… red. I immediately bought it and took it home, I was as happy as a baby.
The cabin is a work of art. It has dark brown ‘leather’ seats, a dashboard, and two ultra cool figurines. They are made of a much harder kind of plastic than the car itself, unbreakable I think. At the wheel is a muscular gentleman with long blond hair, wearing sunglasses and a tank top. In the passenger seat is a beautiful lady wearing a red dress, sunglasses, and a headscarf.
The doors can open, which is quite rare in a radio-controlled car. I’d like to call this a radio-controlled car model. It is too nice to be just a toy car.
That’s a short miniskirt! The arms of the figurines can move up and down.
The dashboard looks a lot like the Corvette’s. It is gold-colored with a driver-focused center stack. The 4-spoke steering wheel is large! The windshield is tinted yellow, with a Europe Famous Car sticker on top.
It has different stickers on the doors: New Modern Car, with a yellow Ferrari-like logo. However, the animal is not a prancing horse but a boxing lion. The wheels are real lookers, remarkably detailed, shiny silver with 18-spokes. It has real rubber tires. Amazingly, the tires are still okay today.
The apartment where I lived was on the top floor, with a spacious roof terrace where I tried out my new toy. It was really fast and drove from one side of the terrace to the other in mere seconds. The steering was good too, sharp and direct, and the connection between the controller and the vehicle never failed. It has working front and rear lights.
A beautiful classic sportscar design!
The boxing lion logo.
At that time, every Chinese toy had a number. This number was usually printed on the box and the bottom of the toy. With car toys, the number was mostly printed behind the rear window or, like in this case, on the license plate area. My Europe Famous Car has the number 2239. The license plate sticker also shows the male sign on the left and the dollar sign on the right. It has two oval exhaust pipe tips and extra aero bits on each side of the bumper. The white slide button opens the battery compartment.
The car needs four 1.5 volt batteries, which isn’t so much. I have other radio-controlled cars of the same size that need much more battery power, without being much faster. The Europe Famous Car is so fast because it is very light. I never put it on a scale but I am sure it weighs less than a kilo.
The color of the remote control has faded a bit. Well, I have used it a lot! The controls are basic: On/off, forward, backward, left, and right. But that is good. The more complex the controls are the greater the chance that it will break. Simple does it!
When in storage, I always put the remote control on the back of the vehicle. In that way, I can see the whole set in one glance. It truly is a special set, with the figurines and the doors and the detailed wheels. I have owned this brilliant machine for 21.5 years, and I still enjoy it a lot. I probably will keep it for the rest of my life, a great and always present memory of my first days living in China.