Sickpup

Could be interested, depends on price of course but looking at the site prices look fair.

I got my second and third cars from Beatties in High Holborn WC1. That would be my Lancia Rally and my Falcon. The place was huge and always busy but the rent was ridiculous and I doubt the place ever broke even let alone made a profit. Not only was it full of stock it was full of knowledge in all things modelling. I still have my Beatties holdalls and I'm kind of happy that I went there before the changes happened in the world. It isn't just the hobby shops I miss. Over the years I have watched Central London change into a shadow of what it once was. Now it's expensive coffee shops/Cafes, offices and high rise housing. The wastelands we used to play on as kids have gone, the specialist shops have gone, everything that gave character has gone in exchange for an influx of homogeneous housing and businesses that give nothing back to the society around it except for overpriced bad food and drinks. I'm guessing the rest of the UK is heading the same way. In my experience it isn't the WWW causing the die off of all these shops, it's the high rents and gentrification. If I had a shop I could get to within 30 minutes and get or order parts I would use it. My other half lives in South Wales where an industrial unit that'll hold 8 cars will cost £450+vat+rates a month. Same unit in Central London you are looking at upwards of £60-80k+vat+rates a year except you won't find one because they have virtually all had their planning use changed so they can be used for coffee shops and the land lords have added 25-50% to the price. For that tenfold increase in rent you won't see a tenfold increase in business. Sorry to be serious but...

Unfortunate that he no longer does them, quality and price were very good. He was an easy chap to deal with as well.

Possibly but not quickly, I won't be having any time off for 2 weeks. You want pictures first?

Has anyone spoken to Peter, RA1028 who used to make the Repro Toyota/Blazer/M38/Rough rider tyres? Doesn't seem to have been active on here for 4 years and his tyres have disappeared from Ebay.

Been 2 months now, looks like this will be binned unless someone pipes up.

Afternoon all. I've got a 1/5 or 1/6th scale Prafa nitro car sat here with many parts missing and many useful parts still on it including the engine. Free to anyone who can collect from the Bethnal Green area.

Arrived this morning and it's the first kit I have ever received that has plastic shrink wrap around it.

Yep so thank you for the tip Its a Euro kit so may not have English instructions, this is why it doesn't turn up in the Amazon UK search.

Found it via google, it doesn't show up in the Amazon search. Clicky

Do you have a link, can't find it?

The only reason I've been watching prices is I would quite like both for my collection as well.

This has steered me more towards buying new from shops in the UK and abroad. Been after a Fox for a while but considered them a bit pricey, looked for 2nd hand part built or NIB, theres always a few about and people wanted full retail for them but couldn't guarantee they were complete. Ordered one from Hong Kong for £135 delivered. Whats the point of buying a 2nd hand average/rough model that you can guarantee needs a new body and wheels/tyres so another £70 for top money often more than a new model, may as just buy that new rere kit.

There are a lot of biitsa's and average condition/hard life ones that people want top money for.

The usual next step here would have been for Tamiya to ban shops from selling outside of their own country, this has happened many times before with cars, motorcycles and electronic goods so I am surprised that Tamiya haven't taken this step but have backed down to a degree. Back in the 80's and 90's this applied in Europe and it was only the EU stepping in and the legal protections of the free market that stopped it and indeed encouraged cross border sales.

Have a google for Mattracks, individual tracks do exist for 4wd vehicles and work extremely well. If you really want to go indepth google for Land Rover Cuthbertson conversions.

Its funny you mention the motor doesn't turn. The one in my Supershot is very tight, I bought it second hand and assumed it had the gearbox assembled incorrectly but no it turned out the mototr was incredibly tight so I can see it being a tight motor.

The first thing that needs doing is removing the push rod from the speed controller and reattach it so the push rod is on top of the wiper, this will reduce friction and give a more even throw from forward to reverse. Because of the angle from the top of the servo horn to the bottom of the speed control wiper you are introducing friction, this can be seen where the push rod is cutting into the wiper.

I remember I had a conversation with a staff member at Beatties in Holborn, would have been around 1990-1992 in regards to old parts. I was after a few bits for my Falcon, the usual broken front end bits and some Frog shocks to fit on a Lancia Rally and he did manage to get them for me in about 7 days so must have been on the usual weekly order. The chap told me that RiKo had loads of old parts for various models but most model shops just wouldn't order them as they were no longer on published in stock parts lists, no one bothered to ask if they were available. The biggest surprise was that RiKo apparantly had hundreds of Blazing Blazer kits sat in the warehouse that they couldn't sell as they didn't want to make a loss on them. They had ordered them expecting to sell more than the Toyota as it was cheaper but people went for the Toyota as it was more advanced. Even giving some generous space for exageration I believed and still believe him. A few years later the Tamiya spares phone line was started and this was pretty much the end for Tamiya spares availabiity. Beatties would no longer order parts for you, you were directed to call a phone number and leave a message in the hope that someone would call you back. If they did and you answered you detailed the parts you needed, they would then call you back again and tell you about availability but the ladies staffing the number didn't have access to old parts lists just the lists for the latest models. I suspect those Blazers if they existed ended up being thrown in a skip as not selling them as kits or as parts meant they ended up with no commercial value so could be written off against tax after a few years but I live in hope that some staff member thought to take them instead of throwing them away so they will eventually appear on the market.

It could be solvents leaching out of the rubber. You see this a lot in 1970's electronics, the power cables become shiney, sticky and moist. The flat spots reinforce the idea as the solvents wouldn't leach out equally from all parts of the tyres. Seems odd for it to be happening to a reasonably new kit.

Can anyone recommend a body filler for use on hard Tamiya bodies?

Yalson The problem here is that Tamiya isn't capitalising on their old IP, they are pretty much ignoring it except for the re-re's.

Forgot, Bristol cars. There are a lot of special cases.

Some good points in your post thank you. If Tamiya is led simply by the Japanese market then they either need to change or they will die. With the opening of borders to both people, sales and information due to the internet the world needs to be treated as Tamiya's market, not an artificially restricted region. We have enough members here who buy from other countries, I recently inported a new Fighting buggy from the US as it wasn't available in the UK. I would be more than happy to buy new vintage parts direct from a spares Dept in Japan for parts that weren't in shops ready packaging. There is a white goods manufacturer who retains parts for 30+ year old items, not certain but might be Miele. As said by others more Car manufacturers supply Heritage parts, Harley Davidson, Suzuki, Land Rover to name a few. It is as I have explained in the clone Bruiser thread more profitable to supply parts than it is to supply whole vehicles. As an example how many sets of tyres would fit in one Tamiya box? Using Car manufacturers as an example isn't a particularly good one as amay parts are made by others. In the case of Historic Land Rover many parts were made by Unipart in the UK and these parts have never really ceased production in the decades since they were first made. I think Tamiya need to change or they will die to be replaced by companies who are ready and able to take advantage of a changing world.

Hibernaculum I think you misunderstand what I am asking. Tamiya has a huge collection of IP which I believe is theirs and theirs alone. I am not suggesting people should have a right to Tamiya's IP I am not suggesting that people should get everything they want BUT and it is a big but if the hobby as a whole is suffering financially then why don't Tamiya use their IP to gain financially for themselves and to encourage collectors to rebuild, apart from the financial gain which is potentially huge, bigger even than the sales of new models it would be a green way of doing things. Yes it would require short runs but we are a worldwide market, a short run of body kits for lets say the Falcon, a very popular car in its time could be as high as 10,000 units to satisfy the market for the next 5 years. These would be very easy to store, they stack inside one another, very cheap to ship as they are light and stack inside each other and could be packaged at destination saving again due to volumetric shipping costs and these body kits would sell for around £50 a shot. It should be pretty easy for Tamiya to work out what parts are suited for small batch production runs, a quick look at what sold and how quickly and prices on Ebay would give a very good indication of what is needed and what would sell at a profit. To give an indication of just how profitable this market is Land Rover have recently bought back Series 1's from as far afield as Australia and have rebuilt them in the Land Rover factory for sale at prices between £60,000 and £80,000 for a basic vehicle. Keep in mind these are 1050's vehicles. To say that the re-re's have satisfied the market for vintage parts would be misleading and would ignore the 20 odd years between issues. There should be no need for unlicensed thrid parties to step in and use/abuse Tamiyas IP, Tamiya should be using it themselves and profiting from it so that the buyer can maintain their vehicles with genuine parts rather than having to write off vehicles until such time as they can find the used parts.