What happened to Tamiya and others?

[stevenpae]

What happend to tamiya and other brands like Hasegawa?

Tamiya doesn't make a 2008 catalog?

No news about interesting 1/24 rally or race car kits.

Why not a Focus WRC 07, C4 WRC, Subaru WRC?
Why not some race cars, and with that i mean cars that are known in Europe also and not the NSX or Lexus race cars.
Aston Martin, Porsche, ...
Remake of the Ford Escort Cosworth should be very interesting.
Or is the biggest problem the car brands that ask to much money to give the licence?

I have the impression that the european market doesn't count for those brands, they only care for Japan and America.

What do you guys think?

[hirofkd]

Write a check of 500,000 USD, and ask the manufacturers to make a kit you like, telling them that you'll pay in advance and handle distribution. Suppose the kit is priced $30, and your cut is 1/3 of the MSRP, you'll make $10 per kit. In order to recover the cost, you have to sell 50000 kits worldwide within a reasonable time. If you think you can do that, you might as well start your own business. The thing is, no kit manufacturers, except for Bandai, can sell that many plastic models these days. That's why we don't see very many new kits.

Tamiya has its profitable R/C division, so it doesn't make business sense to direct some of its budget to the money-losing plastic model division.

If you want more European subjects, you might as well choose law makers who support stronger Euro against Japanese Yen, and it's the same in the US, supporting stronger USD against Yen. The problem is, that'll make Chinese products cheaper, causing the loss of jobs in Europe and US, so that's not gonna happen.

Ideally, the subjects European modelers like to build should be produced in Europe, not in Japan where cost of living is relatively high, which easily pushes the price way out of the reach of average consumers outside Japan.

[freakray]

Funny thing is, while we don't see any new kits in 1/24 or 1/25 scale for the automotive modelers, the aircraft armor guys are getting a healthy number of new kits their way - mainly because there's a larger volume of sales in those genres so they get the kits.

[MPWR]

Manufacturer licensing also makes it much harder to produce new car kits. Car manufacturers demand licensing fees for anything that bears their logos and/or proprietary designs, and as recently as ten years ago they didn't. These fees must be made up in kit sales- which makes kits more expensive for consumers, causes lower sales, and makes it more difficult for kit makers to recoup their initial investments. It's simply more expensive now to put out a kit (because of the additional licensing fees) than it was ten or twenty years ago- so they're less profitable, and we see less of them. Tamiya (and Hasegawa, et al.) can only do the sensible thing, and shift their focus to more profitable products- like R/C and military kits.

Car manufacturers do not care at all if kits of their cars are made or not- but the days that they would let their designs and logos go for free are very much over. Not that they wish us ill, but they know there is no real money to be made on models- the existence of models does not boost car sales.

Bandai also has the additional advantage that their license holder sees real profit from Gundam kits- as a not insignificant percentage of the total profit realized from the Gundam license. If Gundam kits are unavailable, the Gundam license owners don't make as much money. If Ferrari kits aren't available, Ferrari will easily make up the 'loss' with licensed Tshirts, hats, cellphone covers, and of course sports cars.

[Spike2933]

you want a Subaru WRC, Renaissance made a transkit for that.

why not try 1/43. I got a C4 in my to-do pile.

the thing is that the license is alot more now and the demand just isn't that much anymore.

I'd love tamiya to start making some Prototypes instead of Revell, but you just have to work with what they make

[ariel]

Or you can make under 500pcs in resin and call it art and get away from licensing. Thats why you see so many subjects in resin.
Thats why we need to support our cottage industry of resin cars and
parts. Soon thats all we are going to have. Or just start to build the 500+ kits that we have put away. If I keep adding my here
I'll be able to change my handle to 50 cents

Ariel

[klutz_100]

Originally Posted by ariel

If I keep adding my here
I'll be able to change my handle to 50 cents

Ariel

Good one!

[generationx]

It's also interesting a point so far not commented on, as stevenpae said there's no sign of their 2008 catalogue yet - usually being previewed around this time of year. I hope they do one, I have every issue since 1980 and they're always works of art!

[Ferrari TR]

A couple thoughts.
Fujimi has done limited issue resin kits. It is a bit of "put your money where your mouth is", do you want a model of that car that bad.
The other is...
I keep getting e-mails from injection molding outfits in China. Now, i've never followed up on these, but i think you could come up with a joint venture of some sort. Heck, you could be the next 'tamiya'.

[gionc]

There's another way between injected syrene (50K pieces?not much less anyway to keep back the mould costs) and cast resin (300-500 pieces?), from a couple years there are services offering low cost injected molds, done by alu insthead steel. They'll be good for 2-3K pieces only. 4-6 variants of a subject (ex. a 250GTO) for 500 pieces and I'll avoid Ferrari rights? And offer a product with half the cost of a resin kit but precision/quality/thickness of a plastic stuff?

[Didymus]

Times change, not always for the better. But there are workarounds.

Ferrari TR is right; to get those interesting Euro pieces, you'll have to pay the piper. And learn to love resin. And maybe even 1:43.

A good source for 1:24 resin is http://www.islandcollectibles.net. From Aardvark to Wolf Design, the variety, quality and uniqueness of the kits and transkits on their catalog page is breathtaking.

And if you don't mind wearing one of those magnifier goggle things while you make your models, Grand Prix Models in the UK has a huge variety of 1:43.

Maybe if we elect somebody who'll put an end to this stupid war, modelers will fall in love with great cars again, instead of tanks and rocket launchers.

Ddms