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mobias

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Everything posted by mobias

  1. Its fine for light crawling and as a beginners kit but once you've played with a real crawler you'll see that there's a world of difference in capability. The fundamental design problem with the CR-01 is the height of the battery tray. It just makes the chassis way too top heavy, its exactly the opposite of what you want. I've tried to turn my Unimog into a more capable kit by widening and lengthening the wheelbase to try and off set the high centre of gravity and it does help a bit but its just more money spent on an already expensive kit. The CR-01 could never be a rock racer as the gearbox is just all geared too low. I've tried putting a 23 turn motor with a 21t pinion through it and its not at all fast and the whole thing suffers from massive chassis twist, and that's the with the horrible canti suspension system removed. Its no where near the speed and stability of the R1 with the same motor in it. Having spent a lot of money faffing about trying to get the chassis to perform well I wished I'd just bought Junfac's Joker chassis conversion kit right from the off. http://www.junfac.com/shop/index.php?main_...954ed50abc01464 Considering the CR-01 axles and gearbox are all perfectly ok I'm surprised Tamiya haven't released a crawler that uses them but has a chassis similar to the Joker. Surely that wouldn't cost much to develop?
  2. To be fair I think you're missing the point slightly. The Brat is an almost identical re-re of a kit that was designed in the early 80's. You're paying $169 for the vintage nostalgia of the thing and very little else. Obviously you could spend $169 on a more modern car and get a lot more performance for your money. Same argument but to a much greater degree with a kit like the Avante. You're paying all that money for a bit of vintage character and its great looks. You could obviously spend much less for a much better performing car but then again it wouldn't be an Avante. With the Brat and all the other old re-re's you're paying for a little dip in Tamiya history. Performance and modern design shouldn't be on your agenda
  3. But presumably Tamiya would like to sell even more models? If there's a steady market in an area Tamiya are yet to really tap into properly you'd think they'd be interested in it? It certainly looks like there would be no shortage of Tamiya fans that would be interested. Knowing their past RC engineering skill you'd think Tamiya would want to do it properly. So the questions remains - why don't Tamiya make rock racers, short course trucks and proper crawlers for that matter when there's obviously a thriving market for them and a market that may get even bigger if Tamiya got involved and did its bit to help develop it. Is it, as Twinset said in another thread a case of sour grapes that they haven't spearheaded the craze, in recent years anyway, so therefore don't want to be involved? Seems almost childish if that's the case. I agree with what MadInventor eluded to earlier in that they should really up their game by developing new ideas for off road vehicles and being as innovative as they once were.
  4. Believe me you get more fun out of a rock racer like the Wraith than you do out of a TXT, and that's coming from someone who loves their TXT. What I love about kits like the R1 and Wraith is that building the kit (or not if you buy RTR) is really just the beginning. Once you start modding the thing is when the real fun begins. And the Wraith is just one huge modding opportunity. Have a look at this thread and check out some of the rides. Unbelievably cool stuff going on http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/axial-wrait...-archive-6.html Tamiya really need to do something like this
  5. Companies like G-made and Axial definitely have beaten Tamiya to the market place with kits like the R1 and Wraith but there's there's no doubt there's room for more I think. The Wraith is a good example of a kit which you really thought might have come from Tamiya. I know out of the box it looks a bit toy-ish but its a good combination of functionality and great scale looks, the two aren't always mutually exclusive in RC, though Tamiya seem to think otherwise, the CR-01 doesn't function particularly well and isn't particularly scale. I'd like to think the Wraith was a bit of a game changer for Tamiya, maybe they'll try something similar but take it up a another level. I'd also like to know what input Tamiya USA have in this sort of area. The scale crawler and rock racer market seems to be bigger in the USA than it is anywhere else in the world. Surely the US division of Tamiya see a market there which isn't being fed by the big T and which the company could do well in? Or maybe not....
  6. Yeah I'm the same re Bruiser and Mountaineer. I can't image they'd ask less than about 500 quid for either and if I had that amount of money to spend (which I don't) I could buy two cheaper and probably better kits. There's still a few re-re's I'd buy if they came out like the Monster Beetle and Super Shot. I very much doubt we'll see either though. I will get a Wild One when its released, It'll be relatively inexpensive and I've always liked its scale looks. I guess something similar to that would be putting a fast motor in an Axial Honcho but to be honest scale trucks going really fast don't really appeal to me. Slow and steady is the way to go, stops you wrecking them too. I once put a Tamiya RZ 23T motor in my old F-350 when I had it. It just spent a lot of its time on its side or roof. I do like a bit of power but I would rather put that through something huge like the TXT or something versatile like the G-made R1. Rock racing is great fun but you've got to have something that can handle it. Maybe Tamiya could do a dedicated rock racer?
  7. I'm tempted to but I won't bite that one Just to keep things on topic - when was the last time anyone here was seriously excited by a Tamiya release that WASN'T a re-re? I'm sure some of the on road fans here have had stuff to get excited about but how about all the off roaders? I guess for me it would have been the news that Tamiya were going to get into crawling with the CR-01, that was a while ago now. There's been nothing since then whatsoever and i have to say since getting back into the hobby in 2005 there's only been one other announcement that's got me excited - the new F-350 3speed. Seems a pitifully small amount of genuinely new kits and as has been said both are less than top notch. There were rumours two or three years ago that there was a TXT-2 in development. I remember one of the crawler websites saying an announcement was imminent. It was maybe confused with the development of the CR-01. I suspect the TXT days have been and gone. People seem to be much more into 2.2 size scale crawlers or the super fast truggy type monster trucks. With the Tamiya designers coming up with guff like the Vajra I'd hate to think what a TXT-2 would end up looking like anyway.
  8. I'm not saying I have a lack of interest in building a RC car kit but I am saying building a RC car isn't always absolutely central to my RC car enjoyment experience. I'd be perfectly happy buying a RTR crawler kit like the Axial Wraith, strip it apart and tinker with it than get a unbuilt kit like the CR-01 purely because building the thing was central to my enjoyment of it. As to Tamiya being on my radar. Like I said at the start of this thread Tamiya are purely about nostalgia for me. I have almost zero interest in their modern output (though I wish it were otherwise) The last modern kit I built ran and seriously enjoyed was the TXT-1. It has is flaws but generally its a superbly designed truck that is fun to build AND run, unlike its little brothers the F-350 and CR-01.
  9. The RTR issue is a separate debate altogether though. I'd rather have a truly fantastic RC model that came to me built rather than an utterly half baked one that came to me ready to assemble. I'm not into assembling just for the sake of it. Most RTR kits can easily be taken apart and tinkered with - that's what's important and fun to me and what removes it from being just a 'toy' I see your point in comparison to the Avante. They got away with it with the Avante though because with the finished result there was lots of metal and it simply looked amazing, a bit of RC art. With the CR-01 you're left with an awful lot of poorly working plastic and a kit which doesn't even look that great. So yeah, interesting build but costly and frustrating - perhaps that's perfect Tamiya too though.
  10. There's loads of scale off road vehicles I'd love to see Tamiya make but its obviously strangely off their radar. Tamiya's Tanks are an interesting area of their RC line up. Do Tamiya have 100% market share of RC tanks? I'm not aware of other manufacturers making them to the same degree Tamiya do. There's obviously a solid market for them despite the fact you're looking at realistically spending the better part of a grand to get one up and running properly. I've no idea really why Tamiya aren't aggressively taking over the scale off road market with various vehicles. As we've said before everything they've got out is kind of half baked. The F-350 3 speed is ok but the Hilux bodied one looks crow barred on there as does the Tundra to a certain extent. God only knows what was going on in the brains of the designers when they came up with the CR-01 - massive parts count and rubbish performance. So there's Tamiya's scale off road efforts. Two less than stellar chassis. I'd like to see them release something along the lines of Axial's Honcho. A nice looking scale truck that's relatively simple and inexpensive compared to the 3 speeds. I'd also love to see them do something like this http://store.rc4wd.com/Subzero-110-Scale-S...k-Kit_p_54.html But do away with some of the metal so its less heavy (and expensive)
  11. I suspect that there's not as much of a market for it as some of us would like to think. RC cars in general is a niche hobby and within that there are niche areas. I love the scale off road truck and crawler area of the hobby but much as I would like to think otherwise I can see that its not everyone's cup of tea and that particular area of the market must be pretty small. Tamiya have obviously decided for whatever reason not to pursue it aggressively. I've long thought Tamiya would do well releasing a really scale but modern looking off road buggy. I modern version of the SRB if you like but they obviously think otherwise. The area of the market that would care about that sort of thing and buy it is being satisfied with the re-re's, which cost sod all to develop, and the area of the market that couldn't give a toss about scale design are being satisfied with what's already being released. For me Tamiya is a company purely about nostalgia these days. I'm into the scale crawler area of the hobby and there are other companies doing kits way, way better than Tamiya's rather half hearted attempts. For those people here into the scale on road area of the hobby then Tamiya are obviously still the people to go to. Scale on road certainly seems to be Tamiya's speciality in 2011 looking at their current line up. They obviously know that's where the money is to be made.
  12. They certainly don't in the crawler market and with the TXT out of production they don't in the monster truck market either.
  13. Things can still be contaminated through contact though. To this day you have to wear a full protective moon suit to handle and read through Marie Curie's lab notes. That being said I'm sure any kit coming out of Japan even as we speak will be perfectly safe. I wouldn't be worried. Parts of the UK such as Aberdeen that have high levels of background radiation probably produce more than what you'll find in your avarage Tamiya kit coming out of Japan.
  14. I'd be interested to know if that's true. I do wonder just how many newcomers rush out and buy these so called beginners kits. For all the new people getting into the hobby these days, and there's obviously bound to be some, there's an awful lot of kits to choose from from a lot of different manufacturers and judging by the conversations I overhear in my LHS people want ready to run kits that do no less than about 50 mph.
  15. I'll still hold out for a proper ORV based original Monster Beetle re-re. I'll hold my own silent vigil for the car I never owned as a kid. (Puts on pipe and slippers) Back in August 1988 I went on a family holiday to London for a week. I had £100 saved from a summer job to spend on a new RC car to replace my ageing Hornet. I'd seen a Monster Beetle in the window of my LHS here in Edinburgh and I couldn't believe how huge it looked compared to the humble little Hornet. I just thought it looked the coolest car and that it would be great fun to run. Anyway so I found a hobby store in London and went to get a MB but was stopped in my tracks by the sight of a Bigwig and Boomerang sitting side by side in a glass display case. I'd always loved the Bigwig but it was way, way out of my price range. The Boomerang was exactly the same price as the MB though - £89.95. I could afford either. In the end after a lot of deliberation I went with the Boomerang. I thought the 4WD would be great and the car just looked really fast. I always regretted it after I built it and ran it. It was slow with a standard 540 motor and all those plastic bushings, loads of friction. So the Monster Beetle has always alluded me. I've thought about getting an old one and restoring it, I still may one day, but since the re-re's started up I've always hoped Tamiya might bring it out again. I'd love to see one in the flesh from a NIB kit rather than a battered old one arriving from Ebay. Go on Tamiya bring it out! There's no nostalgia value in slamming it on a modern chassis. The appeal and charm is utterly lost. You do wonder with all the parts for the original Mudblaster and Monster Beetle in production why they won't or haven't brought it out? Is the ORV gearbox really that bad with large wheels fitted on it? (puts away pipe and slippers...)
  16. Who are they trying to kid? Hooray! Tamiya sure know hot make their stuff appealing. The economic crisis really has hit them.
  17. What's interesting about seeing the current line up of Tamiya kits is how many scale on road cars they have. People go on about how Tamiya RC is now more in the toy market but that's only the case for some of their off road vehicles. They've got so few scale off road kits and the ones they do have aren't really even that scale. Loads of beautiful road and racing cars though, they are still in a league of their own in that area. Its obviously where the market is for them. I still find it odd that there's areas of the scale off road market like crawlers that they're just not bothered with.
  18. Yeah possibly. I still don't see why they can't do a faithful-ish re-re. Almost all of it is currently in production in some form or other.
  19. Because its an extremely expensive truck (or at least was last time I looked) that's highly unlikely to sell well? That to me would answer why not. The initial question of what's the point of it seems a legitimate one. The area of the market this truck is presumably aimed at is made up of far far better looking, probably better performing and almost certainly cheaper trucks. So who's going to buy it?
  20. Any Monster Beetle re-re would have to be as close to the original as possible for me to buy it. I presume if the Mud Blaster is indeed on the original ORV chassis then they'll do something to beef up the weak points like they did with the Avante, Hotshot etc. In some ways its a no brainer for them to re-re the Mud Blaster and then in six months time re-re the Monster Beetle. Both will sell really well and both are pretty much just parts bins for stuff that is already in production. I guess you could say the Hotshot was technically the less good model though.
  21. The guy at Tamiyablog says that photo was provided by Tamiya and he believes the chassis will be the original ORV one.
  22. They probably do with the cheaper plastic kits but with the more expensive ones they'll limit stock quantities so as to not have a whole load of expensive kits sitting around unsold. Re-releasing a really expensive car is untested water for Tamiya so I'm sure they'll be quite conservative with the Avante when it comes to stock. As far as the show rooms here goes. It'll be interesting to see just how many more re-re Avante's appear here. Its the first really ultra expensive re-re and I've got a feeling most of those that desperately wanted one, and who could afford it, now have theirs. Obviously you'll see more re-re Avante's appearing here in the coming months/years but you may find its not that many. Where as with the cheaper kits they may be more constant sellers.
  23. Though to be fair Tamiya aren't perhaps making lots of them which could be the biggest factor as to why its out of stock a lot. On top of that there are other hobby shops in the world other than Stella which sell them which aren't constantly sold out. Also, I've no idea where you've got your evidence that its the fastest selling. I suspect that's not true at all. A cheaper but also much sought after re-re like the Hotshot will have sold much much faster. I don't think showrooms here can be used as any indicator as to how many buggies are selling out there in the wider world. A lot of people here are collectors so obviously the Avante is going to be cropping up in a lot of show rooms. Conversely the HB2011 is fairly derided here but its cheap so is likely to be selling well to the wider public, its a great beginners car.
  24. At the price it is it doesn't surprise me. You can buy an awful lot of radio control car elsewhere for the price the Avante is selling at. Beautiful though it is, it's a luxury item for a lot of people these days. You do wonder how many more Tamiya might have sold if they re-re'd it in 2005/6 when people had money.
  25. I'll second vote the G-made R1. Most fun RC car I've ever owned, so versatile and you can have endless fun modding it. I'm kind of in the same boat as I've got a couple of hundred quid that's burning a hole in my wallet. Doubt I'm going to spend it on a Tamiya though. I've seen the light as far as other manufacturers go. I'll probably save up a bit more and get either an Axial Honcho or a Wraith. I love modding cars and both provide a lot of possibilities. Some of the modded Wraiths that people are doing now look incredible, and like the R1 it looks like a great all rounder. The TXT-1 is a great truck but you'll be spending an awful lot more that 250 quid getting it up and running well let alone maintaining it. There's more fun to be had for less money with other vehicle choices.
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