14 replies to this topic

[Swarm]

I was just looking to see how many Cars/Buggies Marui released as I have heard that the much sought after Mitsubishi Pajero is hard to get according to Wikipedia it was never released and shelved no wonder I cannot find it below is an extract from Wikipedia about Marui .
So It would seem this car is even rarer than first thought ashame as it would have been a nice kit to own .
I have a definate soft spot for Marui .



Tokyo Marui was also at the forefront of the developing radio control hobby in the mid-1980s with a line of high-quality 1/10-scale electric buggies, monster trucks and even an unusual NASCAR Winston Cup stocker, all in kit form. This kit of Bill Elliott's Coors Melling Ford Thunderbird was built on a four-wheel drive buggy chassis; despite that full-scale NASCAR racers are rear-wheel drive. The body could be raised or lowered for either onroad or offroad use and two full sets of wheels and tires were included, pre-mounted sponge slick tires for onroad and knobby spiked rubber tires for offroad. The Big Bear Datsun, a 1/12-scale monster truck topped with a Datsun pickup truck body, powered by a Mabuchi RS-380 motor and initially sold via mail order, was one of the best-selling radio controlled models of the period and contributed greatly to the hobby's growth.

Scale variations on the simple and strong Big Bear chassis included both regular and "Super Wheelie" versions of the Jeep CJ-7 Golden Eagle and Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser, each lacking the oversized wheels and tires of the Big Bear and equipped instead with more scale-looking Goodyear offroad tires. A proposed third version which would have been Marui's ninth release was that of a Mitsubishi Pajero, shelved due to licensing problems. Twelve models were released in all, numbered 1 through 13 since the aforementioned ninth model never made it to market.

Strong competition by the end of the decade, especially from Tamiya and Kyosho, caused Marui to pull out of the hobby-grade R/C market. They returned to the R/C market in 2000 with a still-popular line of ready-to-run

[Tipsy]

Check out Darryn's collection

Darryn's Showroom

[Swarm]

Check out Darryn's collection

Darryn's Showroom

Yeah Darryn has got it good with all those nice NIB's .I have drooled over his collection before as I guess many of us have .
Lots of money and hard work in his collection.

Yup no Pajero there just a spot for it perhaps.
But he knows it was never released.

I was hitting the Forums last night big time anything on Marui and the general concensus was the Pajero was out there somewhere but it appears it was just a pipe dream by Marui

I aspire to Darryn's Marui Collection only 12 Kits to get I know one is super rare (just cant remember which one atm) but the others are still obtainable (I hope).

I will give it my best shot to get as many as I can .

[Hibernaculum]

I was going to post this as a new topic, but I might as well put it here...
The Marui collection is a small one, but a pretty special one in the world of vintage RC. Which of the 12 cars do you guys think are:

1) The rarest
2) The most desirable

The unreleased Pajero is not an option

cheers,
H.

[Hibernaculum]

Nobody has any opinions on this?

[OCD]

Nobody has any opinions on this?

Not really my opinion, but from my experience --

The Shogun is ridiculously hard to find original parts for. I bought an 'almost complete' kit some years ago, and spent at least two years trying to locate the cannibalized chassis parts. Since the missing pieces were solely plastics for the chassis, I thought they would be easy to find.. Boy was I wrong! Even though the Shogun and Ninja are largely the same car, the Shogun was moulded in BLACK plastic, rather than the gray that the Ninja parts were. Apparently there were not many Shogun spares produced

Here I had the body, tires, wheels, driver, decals, and most of the parts that would normally be the hardest to find , but couldn't do a thing with them! I hoped that I might eventually happen upon a shelfer with a bad paint job, but as the years went by, Shoguns seemed to have become even more scarce. Eventually I sold the entire mess to another collector in France, but for four times the price I paid originally! Perhaps he had the parts I was after?

-S

[Hibernaculum]

Thanks Steve. Yes, I had heard from Darryn also that the Shogun was by far the hardest to find. At least you made a profit!
Also, I remember in the early 2000s, Marui kits would come up on eBay quite often, and were nowhere as collectible as they are now.

From my observations over the years (and I have been watching - not intently but at least regularly - for many years), I would guess at the following groupings of rarity (in no particular order within each grouping):

Least rare:
- Galaxy
- Galaxy RS
- Big Bear
- Hunter
- Coors Melling Thunderbird
- CJ-7 Golden Eagle
- Super Wheelie CJ-7 Golden Eagle
- Toyota Landcruiser
- Super Wheelie Toyota Landcruiser

However, I think I have a mistake here. I am pretty sure one of either the Golden Eagle or Landcruiser variations, is much harder to find than the rest.
The rest of this "least rare" could be ok though? I know for sure I have seen them either appear on ebay at intervals of only a few months, or in some cases they have sat on ebay for sale for many months.

Quite rare:
- Samurai
- Ninja

These are kits which appear now and then, but in my experience are fairly scarce. Perhaps 1 for every 6months on eBay.

Ultra rare:
- Shogun

A lazy search of showrooms only reveals 3 NIB. I have only seen one on ebay, in my memory of the past year or so.

H.

[RETRO R/C]

By far the hardest to find was the Shogun, I was EXTREMELY lucky and got a buy it now on Japan Yahoo before anyone else saw it! Had only ever seen one before that. They are around - but will go for big dollars I would think.

The other hard to find kit (in my experience) is the Blue Land Cruiser "wheelie" car - the one with the Dolphin on the body. VERY rarely see them come up NIB either. I jagged mine on a poorly listed Yahoo Japan listing as well....have had some lucky breaks on occasion - however it took years - so maybe not that "lucky".....

As for the Pajero - as far as I can tell - its a thing of legend. No production run was made - thats as far as I got with my research.

Cheers

Darryn

[madbad jezza]

Strange how people seem to think the shogun is so rare and sought after. I bought a complete runner - with the original box, off the bay for virtually nothing a few years ago. I watched the auction all week and no-one bid on it, so the item didn't sell. I contacted the seller and bought the kit. I stripped and rebuilt it, ran it and was bitterly dissapointed with it. It was put back on the bay and sold for what i paid for it - virtually nothing. It had very little interest - and that was on a world wide sale. I had a few spares which sold better. I still have the original box though. I decided to keep that because i liked it more than the car. I do like Marui cars though and i've been looking for a samuri for a few years now but they seem to command very high prices.

[OCD]

Strange how people seem to think the shogun is so rare and sought after. I bought a complete runner - with the original box, off the bay for virtually nothing a few years ago. I watched the auction all week and no-one bid on it, so the item didn't sell. I contacted the seller and bought the kit. I stripped and rebuilt it, ran it and was bitterly dissapointed with it. It was put back on the bay and sold for what i paid for it - virtually nothing. It had very little interest - and that was on a world wide sale. I had a few spares which sold better. I still have the original box though. I decided to keep that because i liked it more than the car. I do like Marui cars though and i've been looking for a samuri for a few years now but they seem to command very high prices.

Runners are much easier to come by than new. New Shogun or parts = Silly Rare.

-S

[Hibernaculum]

Thanks for your thoughts, guys.

madbad jezza - Runners are often much cheaper, and this effect may be amplified with rare cars like this where parts are even more scarce. As some have found, restoring a Shogun with all original new parts is almost impossible.

Another theory regarding NIBs - perhaps the market is struggling to settle on a consistent value for these cars, because of the very reason that they are so rare in NIB form.

And also, I think there is still a slow acceptance of non-Tamiya brands being worth what they deserve to be worth.
Back in 2000, I remember NIB Maruis were quite cheap. I think a lot of people were just learning that there was much more to vintage RC, than just Tamiya.
They have certainly come a long way since then, but there is still some way to go before they have the same collector value as Tamiya. But they are slowly getting there.

H.

[bakaguyjean]

I would say this is rather rare.

[RETRO R/C]

I would say this is rather rare.

HOT Darn - now that is SUPR SWEEEEEEET

Swap something tasty for it!!

That is a tasty one for sure - yours mate? We havent spoken for ages - still in Japan?

Cheers

Darryn

[RETRO R/C]

Yep - Shoguns (runners) are not to hard to find at all. New builts - quite hard. NIB kits - well, I certainly havent seen a whole lot of them, maybe I am looking in the wrong spot!

Might eventually get myself a runner Shogun, although I would rather get a Ninja runner - quite like them.

The Samurai is one of the most underated racers of the period. Terrific car to drive.

Cheers

Darryn

[Static Age]

On the subject of Shoguns, there are two on ebay uk at the moment. One of them looks to be in superb condition.