The Totara Hobbies Story... So far.

Well 2019 has been an exciting year, but many of you probably don't know how we came about.

Late 2015 we came across some familiar toy kits, Tamiya Mini 4wd Car Kits. As a mate an i reminisced over racing these as kids, placing our selves back to the early 90's. Myself starting racing these wicked little machines at Brent's Tots N Toyland in Napier around 1991-1992. Remembering how much fun it was for kids and adults alike.

The following day we found our way back and couldn't help buying a couple of these. A Manta Ray Mkii found its way home with me that day.

After we convinced a few friends how cool these where, here we sat wondering if there where tracks around Auckland. And what did you know, the guys a J-Tune had a track open every second Friday night, in a paint spray booth. Wow.. what a track they had too..

After a while, we craved more.. More excitement, more racing and more competition. This is was the start of the North Harbour Mini 4wd Club (https://mini4wd.nz). By mid 2017 we had 2 lots of track and a small venue to setup and this is where the start of Totara Hobbies began. I started getting in a real small amount of parts, a few motors, a few Car kits, nothing too serious at all. This was just supposed to be small so we had a few items available on race nights.

As happens sometimes people get carried away, I am no exception. The products kept coming in larger and larger quantities up to the point of no return.

Finally early 2018 we managed to arrange a bigger venue, some more track, heaps of support from Glen at Cooltoys Napier and the Hawkes Bay Mini 4WD Club.

This is really where North Harbour Mini 4WD started.

 (Photo: March 2018, Birkenhead Scout Hall. In this photo you will see some of our core members Garron, Steve, Jamie and Evan).

We slowly outgrew this venue with more and more racers turning up, which was great and scary at the same time. Eventually we had to say goodbye to the team at Birkenhead and say hello to our current venue at Mayfield Scout Hall in Glenfield. Wow, this was an amazing change for us, one that allowed us to really start promoting the hobby and growing this further.

Finally in 2019 things were expanding rapidly, this is where Totara Hobbies was officially born (April 2019). We now had a number of great contacts in Japan & Hong Kong who could supply plenty of parts. We jumped in to it with a new online store (Thanks Steve Hennerley for the help) and we were off.

Now we have started to expand our product ranges to include not just Tamiya Mini 4wd but Tamiya Mini 4wd track, Tamiya RC, Gundam and Scalextric kits.

Now as 2019 comes to a close, we are really grateful for all the people who have stood by us and support both Totara Hobbies and North Harbour Mini 4wd. We are really excited about what 2020 will bring.

Onwards and upwards.. together we will make this hobby the best it can be.