Last night I received a text from a friend that he had found a couple of old XMODS while cleaning his house and asked if I wanted them. They hadn’t been used in a long time and neither one ran, but I happily took them and saved them from being tossed.

I played with these all the time when I was younger. I managed to collect quite a few and every one was pretty ‘modified’ using the Radio Shack upgrade kits. The very first one I bought was a red Supra in fact, since I was (and still am) such a huge fan of the MkIV; when I was told one of the ones in the pair was a Supra that was a bonus.

Anyway, after I got home I started to troubleshoot them to see if I could get them going again. The RSX was easy enough to fix; the remote was bad. Once I swapped the crystals between the remotes (so that the Supra’s would be on the RSX’s frequency) I had it going again. Fortunately I have lots of spare remotes still.

The RSX came with the optional body kit, new suspension, and working headlights and tail lights. The other body panels were included too, as well as the ones for the Supra.

The Supra is a different story. It doesn’t seem to be receiving the signal from the controller at all. At the moment the electronics are out of the chassis so that I can get a clearer view and try to find the problem. I did disassemble most of the body and give it a wash though, to clean off the dust. These shells are in really good shape! No real scuffs or scrapes to speak of, especially on the Supra.

After playing with these for a while last night I have already been browsing online for more parts for these. I haven’t ordered anything yet but perhaps I may buy a few small things to upgrade these cars a little more. It’s certainly a lot less expensive than working on the real cars! XMODS are still fun.

-Bill