Compared to actual cars, radio control is considered a relatively young technology. After all, cars even predate radio itself, which was first developed by Guglielmo Marconi in 1895, nearly a decade before the first automobile was created in 1886.

But although RC vehicles would not appear until the 1960s, it appears that legendary scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla actually invented one around the same time Marconi was receiving his patent for the wireless telegraph. At an Electrical Exhibition held at New York’s Madison Square Garden in 1898, Tesla presented a small toy boat, which he was able to pilot around a pool using only a radio transmitter. 

Like with many of Tesla’s inventions, audiences were stunned to the point of disbelief. Many decried Tesla’s boat as “magic” or “illusion.” Newspapers of the day focused on Tesla’s technology as a means to control torpedoes, while Tesla himself envisioned it for robotics. “You do not see there a wireless torpedo,” he told the press, “ you see there the first of a race of robots, mechanical men which will do the laborious work of the human race."

But with the world turning to war, torpedo guidance remained a key focus of the technology. In 1942, the legendary movie star Hedy Lamarr even got in on the action. Working with avant-garde composer Burt Anheil, Lamarr patented a frequency-hopping system to remotely control torpedoes, but the US Navy declined to adopt it. It would not be until 1957 that the Lamarr’s system would be put to use by Sylvania.

Despite Tesla’s vision, robotics would not appear for another half-century, when they were pioneered by George Devol in the early 1950s. After receiving his first patent in 1954, Devol partnered with physicist and businessman Joseph Engelberger to build the first robot. Patented in 1960, the first robot was called a “Unimate,” and sold to General Motors to be used in automating automotive assembly lines.

Just a few years later, in 1966, the first radio controlled car was brought to market by Italian company Elettronica Gioattoli. The car was a nitro-powered, ⅛ scale model of a Ferrari 250LM, and it instantly spawned an entire market for RC vehicles. It was followed one year later by British company Mardave, as well as other kit manufacturers with sights on the hobby market.

For the first decade, RC vehicles were entirely powered by nitro engines. That changed in 1976, when Tamiya, a Japanese company, revolutionized the industry by introducing electric engines. 

Tamiya was a modeling company that started in 1948 marketing wooden models to hobbyists. Two decades later, Tamiya expanded into making plastic models, and soon began selling motorized tank models. However, it was their first RC car, released just before Christmas in 1976, that changed everything.

The first electric RC car was a 1/12-scale Porsche 934 Turbo and was released as a model kit. To get it right, Tamiya’s design team purchased and deconstructed an actual Porsche. This attention to detail helped power the Tamiya brand into the public eye, allowing them to dominate the RC market for decades.

Three years later, in 1979, Tamiya introduced the first off-road RC vehicles, a pair of dune buggies with heavy duty rubber tires, a powerful motor, and a real suspension system. Not only did this expand the RC market into fresh new territory, it also began opening it up to new companies with fresh, innovative products.

Over the next several decades, the world of RC continued to grow and expand. While Tesla’s vision of robots doing “the laborious work of the human race” did indeed take shape, it was not through radio-control as he had envisioned.

Today, Google is using RC-derivative technologies such as cellular, WI-FI, and bluetooth to robotically pilot driverless cars, bringing the world of RC and cars together once again en route to the future.