Kyosho, Cox, Graupner Family Tree?

[beefmuffin 1156]

With all the excitement around Kyosho's re-releases, especially the Optima, it's been rekindling in me a never-satisfied curiosity to know more about the relationship between Cox, Kyosho, Graupner and maybe other companies that seem to have been branches of one another, or formed out of one another, acquired by one another...??? I really don't know! I'm fairly certain that Cox was a U.S. company originally, and Kyosho is obviously Japanese. Did Kyosho buy Cox at some point?

Who knows the story??

[markbt73 5316]

Not a definitive source, I know, but...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox_Models

Never owned by Kyosho. My guess is that they just had an import deal, and did some re-branding. Interesting that Leisure owned both Cox and Airtronics at one point; explains why my Bandido's radio is basically an SR-2.

[beefmuffin 1156]

Not a definitive source, I know, but...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox_Models

Never owned by Kyosho. My guess is that they just had an import deal, and did some re-branding. Interesting that Leisure owned both Cox and Airtronics at one point; explains why my Bandido's radio is basically an SR-2.

It's amazing how much Hobbico aka Tower Hobbies now controls! The Cox article doesn't go into much detail on Kyosho. Although it does allude to the churning battleground over branding and distribution rights that must have existed amid the booming business segment BITD. It's well known - though also lacking in sources of details - the conflict between Tamiya and MRC over distributorship in the U.S. Maybe Cox just got from Kyosho what MRC never managed from Tamiya - a complete rebranding of the product, subjugating Kyosho into the position of just a wholesale/contract manufacturer.

There has got to be somewhere with all the juicy details of this stuff, or someone who knows for sure how this all went down!

[markbt73 5316]

The Hobbico connection is even funnier when you remember that Great Planes (also a Hobbico division) was the "official" Kyosho distributor back then. Same as in any business, I guess: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

[beefmuffin 1156]

The Hobbico connection is even funnier when you remember that Great Planes (also a Hobbico division) was the "official" Kyosho distributor back then. Same as in any business, I guess: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Funny that you mention r/c planes, I didn't really even know that Tamiya had a go at r/c planes BITD. I was flipping through a vintage Tamiya catalog yesterday (1984 maybe?) and was surprised to see a Dynatech 02h inside an r/c glider! See pics below...

[beefmuffin 1156]

The Hobbico connection is even funnier when you remember that Great Planes (also a Hobbico division) was the "official" Kyosho distributor back then. Same as in any business, I guess: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

In a related subject isn't this a Bandido chassis? But it says Kyosho on the bottom... do all the Bandidos have that? Or is this a different model chassis?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-KYOSHO-BUGGY-CHASSIS-FOR-PARTS-OR-REPAIR-/182018658655

[beefmuffin 1156]

Well, answered my own question with my own Bandido...

[markbt73 5316]

Thinking about it... the Bandido and Ultrastock were the last Kyosho cars to be sold by Cox. (1986-87?) And neither is exactly the same as Kyosho's own version. Prior to that, they sold Scorpions and Tomahawks and Gallops that were identical to Kyosho's except the box and decals. I wonder if the exclusive Great Planes-Kyosho distribution deal happened in about 1984-85, at which point Cox was forced to badge-enginner and re-body Kyosho kits to keep offering them. (would explain why there was never a Cox Optima.)

And now I have a very vague recollection of a Cox-badged Kyosho Super Alta 1/12 car, but I can't remember what body came on it... it wasn't a Porsche 956. And I know the Cox .049-powered 1/12 car from the late 80s was not Kyosho, but I don't know who actually made it.

[Hibernaculum 933]

Late to this, but I don't think there's too much more to know about the Cox/Kyosho/Graupner relationship than the basics you guys have already recapped.

ie. It was common practice in the 80s for Japanese companies to release products overseas under co-branding arrangements. I say co-branding (not re-branding) because even in the case where the manufacturing brand's name was not on the outer box, inside everything was usually still branded under their name - e.g. the kit box internals and embossed parts of a Cox/Kyosho kit were Kyosho branded, so they weren't fooling anyone.

In all cases, these arrangements were done for perceived mutual benefit:

1) local company (e.g. Cox) gets to add new products to their line and keep promoting their brand name at home while also preventing another brand name from entering the market.

2) Japanese brand gets to harness the distributor network and marketing clout of the local company, and shift more units than they otherwise might have.

Eventually the Japanese company usually tired of this arrangement, and decided to go it alone under their own name.

FYI - In Germany, some Kyosho products were also sold under the "Robbe" brand - e.g. Robbe/Kyosho Coyote = Kyosho Sand Skipper.

This whole system was also extremely common among ready-to-run R/C products. Radio Shack never manufactured a single R/C car, but sold millions, all made by Taiyo, Nikko, Yonezawa and others.

In Germany, a brand called Technotoy sold Nikko. Then Tronico sold Nikko. Then Dickie sold Nikko and Taiyo. And Gama sold Matsushiro products.

In the USA, Tyco's vast marketing caused an explosion in the popularity of Taiyo products, but Taiyo managed to keep their logo on the front of every Tyco box - just a bit smaller and down the bottom.

Tamiya was always bigger than the other Japanese brands, and so was probably more feisty in their efforts to be seen as themselves, overseas. Still, they partnered with MRC and RiKo, but the foreign distributor always took second billing on the boxes, never first.

It's all a bit annoying really, to look back on. It'd make for simpler history if everyone had just stuck to their own freakin brand name

But it does mean, when cataloguing the history, that we have to consider every foreign co-branded product a separate "Release" of each model, because in some cases there were little differences in the kits. Not with Tamiya (apart from box writing and paperwork inclusions), but certainly with all the others.

e.g. the original Cox/Kyosho Tomahawk differed from the Kyosho Tomahawk by something so strange as a few decals on the decal sheet, making the sheet a bit shorter. No idea why they did stuff like that, but they did!

The Cox/Kyosho Scorpion actually came RTR instead of a kit, thus making it a very different experience to the Kyosho Scorpion kit. I think the Graupner Scorpion may have been similar, or at least certainly came in a much smaller box to the Kyosho Scorpion. There were the occasional actual parts differences too, between releases. e.g I believe the Graupner/Kyosho Scorpion only came with the black radio tub, not the (obviously more correct!) yellow tub found on the original Kyosho release.

cheers,

H.

[beefmuffin 1156]

WOW H. - thanks for the awesome contribution to this discussion! I find it all maybe a little more fascinating and mysterious than it objectively merits, but I guess we are all here because of levels of interest in this stuff that are a bit higher than in the general population (...civilians).