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Am I wrong or Super Avante doesn't sell?

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There are only five of them on the showrooms of the club.
Super Avante it's going to reach one year of production and few numbers, I believe.
Not a success it seems.
Am I wrong?

Max

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Dunno, but at the price (Around 300 quid) it's going to have stiff competition from Kyoshos turbo optima and optima mid priced at £380-£400. Given the choice I'd rather spend the extra cash on the Mid and have a classic simple design that is know to perform well.

 

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Not surprised. Too expensive. Too weird, and not good-weird like typical Tamiya offerings. (As soon as I saw how the battery goes in, I was out.) And, frankly, hideous.

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I do not own a TD2/TD4, but I can see the appeal as it's an entirely new platform and mysterious as to see how well it does in real world.   That said, I am not sure if it's even in the same category (well besides price) as one is vintage, one is brand new.

Optima's and Optima Mids are proven technologies so that's a nice way to get a pre-determined great car;  I look forward to getting a SuperEgress (if it ever gets released) in a TD4.. and I hope all the bug fixes and hop-ups are included.  I'm tired of researching and buying hop ups.. I want a flagship model with all goodness inside one simple package.  :D 

 

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I didn’t buy one, no interest at all currently.

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I think its down to the price.  Over here it isn't far off what a modern race kit would cost, and I know that most people don't race, but a race kit includes slipper clutch or centre diff, alloy shocks, aluminium chassis etc so you are getting a lot more for your money.  I needs to reduce by 30% - 50% to make any sense as it isn't like a rere Egress or Top Force Evo where people are wanting what they had or couldn't have as kids so will pay more.  There must be a lot of options in the RTR segment too for that money that can jump houses.  By comparison I picked up a Durga the other day for about half the price of a Super Avante.

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No interest. This new platform is not the super avante i imagined, period. If this blob released with another "new" name, i might bought it, but it doesnt.

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I'm not personally a huge fan of how it looks. That being said I'm sure they are lots of design classics, both in the RC world and otherwise that when released people thought were ugly as badword, but now appreciated for what they are.

Did people like the Grasshopper when released? Or Sand Scorcher? 

Personally I mainly like trucks anyhow, so was not ever going to be on my list.

 

 

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Number in the show room probably isn't the best metric for gauging success (DB01s / Durga have pretty limited presence given it's been available for 15 years!)

That said I would be interested in sales figures and what people are doing with theirs. 

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I've not built mine yet and I'm slow to update my showroom anyway :D

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Wouldn't surprise me if it was quiet on those. They do look weird (and I like Thunder Dragons and Saint Dragons.....) I've got my eye on the TD4/2 platforms as I like the Tamiya-ness of the chassis, but I really want a different shell, or chassis only kit. If I bought a current Super Avante or Astute 2022 I would want to sell the body and wheels immediately, and no one would buy them. 

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7 hours ago, Willy iine said:

I can see the appeal as it's an entirely new platform and mysterious as to see how well it does in real world.

This is what attracted me. The body? Well, if I take off my glasses (legally blind at that point) I can look in its general direction without feeling ill. Seriously, some alternate maskings almost made it look acceptable.

Honestly, I can see where Tamiya was going with this. Much of the original Avantes quirkiness is present here in spirit. Twisted, deformed spirit that fell out of a tall tree, but spirit none the less. Sorry sorry.

Like @ThunderDragonCy mentioned, there's a Tamiya-ness there that I like. The problem is it may be too contrived this time around. The original Avante showed the vast engineering power Tamiya had but was unfortunately not properly skilled with or rather too inexperienced with, to create a competition buggy. The Avante was still in an era where there were new things to be tried. People bought expensive Avantes because they showed promise on the track. Those people were disappointed back then and hobby shops had to blow out the old stock for as low as $99. History has made Tamiya's Avante effort a star in the lineup. Its a product of its time and I don't think it can be replicated.

To some degree, I think that's what the Super Avante attempted to do: replicate the old Avante magic in a rather contrived way. This time they know what makes up a solid 4wd comp car but deliberately engineered it differently to ape the uniqueness of the original. That leaves it hanging out in the ether. Its better than the original but its not a comp car of today's standards. Its too expensive to be a mid-level 4wd DF03 type buggy. Its basically a love letter to Tamiya and more specifically Avante fans and it doesn't really work because you can't recreate the situation which the original was born into. Heck, Tamiya even made sure to put in a cockpit detail recalling the original (something all racers BITD tossed out on an already-too-heavy buggy)  For comic geeks like me, the movie Superman Returns was a love letter to the original Donner Superman movies and it didn't work for the mass public either. Its also like mashing the Death of Superman comics together with The Dark Knight Returns comics to create the unholy mess that was Batman V Superman, a movie so bafflingly wrong-headed and structurally schizophrenic it could be studied for years as how not to make a movie, let alone build a franchise. 

Often times when we dig up the past and run it through today's lens (rather than leaving it seen through the lens of nostalgia, like a re-release) we wind up with something monstrous. I may "live in the past" in many ways, but even a fool like me knows you can't really go back. The future comes for us all and we must make the best of it.

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No need any rationale here. I have done 3. More to come.

 

IMG_6637.jpg?width=1920&height=1080&fit=

In Australia

 

 

IMG-5848.jpg

In Malaysia

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2 hours ago, Saito2 said:

The future comes for us all and we must make the best of it.

If you stand up like a nail then you will be knocked down 

 

How ironic

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I was very curious about it because tamiya have released a few different buggies with the avante name but they have all been a bit of a damp squib (maybe avante 2001 we can forgive) the reason why I actually purchased one because it was a 99% completely new design so I thought why not? But I do agree it's expensive for what it is and it performs really well indeed;) and I actually like the look of it overall:)

the problems I have with it was it didn't really excite me as I was building it:unsure: kinda left me underwhelmed and trying to get a brushless combo into it was just ridiculous so I didn't bother! I don't actually know if it's a good selling rc buggy my head is thinking probably not simply because of its price and what you can for that price range? But my heart is saying I hope it is selling because it's a good base for improvement:D

20220119_140040.jpg

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How much modern Tamiya stuff finds its way into the showrooms here? Not much.

As usual with Tamiya, this is a release based on what they fancy doing and what might sell in the Japanese market. Here in the UK it has almost zero appeal, ugly, priced too high for the budget market, not raceworthy, silly decisions around electronics fitment etc etc.

Tamiya's top sellers in the UK are the same kits that sold well in the 80s... They're living off the past. 

 

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Is it possible that if the body had been different and there was no attachment to the Avante name, that this buggy might be received differently? We probably would have enjoyed its eccentricities as being a return to Tamiya uniqueness. Only a Tamiya lover would probably smile and accept the fiddly battery removal procedure, accepting it as part of the charm. A body shape not beholden to that of the original might have went over better. Still, with Tamiya's capability of being "interesting" in their design ideas (think CR01) and their propensity of reminding us of their past (re-releases everywhere) you can almost hear the click of the lightbulb going on in their heads when these two ideas came together. I know it sounds like I'm being critical but I'm more trying to get into their headspace and be analytical. I love that they did it. I hope it does sell. It didn't do it for me on both technical and appearance considerations however.

Technically, its not cheap. The plastics are a big upgrade so big thumbs up there but there are other issues. At that price, I don't want plastic diff nuts, Top Force wheels and skipping plastic bevel gears that need to be swapped out for ones from a discontinued model that itself sold poorly. Give me DF03 wheels and metal diff nuts/bevel gears and I'm on board (even with the battery procedure) at that price, but leading me down the "Tamiya Hop-up path" to get those things pushes the price upwards to the point where my interests faded.

Stylistically? Well, looks are subjective. Jokes aside, its not my cup of tea but there is no reason others can't enjoy it. I find it attractive from some angles, like the pic of @moffman's above which looks great even with the fenders which I normally don't care for. Other angles make it look like and overturned boat with a blister on top to me. I'm just impressed how some owners managed to make it look quite good with proper paintwork. 

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The club really doesn't cover the average joe.. it mainly has more hardcore collectors etc, that is what is seen in the showrooms. The TD4 sold out the first three production runs, it is only the last batch that seem to be available to easily pick up. My local hobby shop only managed to get some a few weeks ago.

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I'm a fan of the TD4, I've built 2 for friends and was impressed. I feel it's a decent replacement for the DF03, handles well and is pretty strong. Probably not well suited out of the box to a brushless setup though.

My personal build is stalled though as I'm still waiting to get hold of the metal bevel gear set.

Pricing is not great, but not awful - for the cost I would have like to see a clutch and front universals included to bring slightly closer in spec with other buggies on the market.

Stock plastic diff nut is probably the worst bit on the car IMO

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I believe that Super Avante have 4 big problems:

1st -  Too expensive.
2nd - The name. Avante is a sacred name, you can't use it for anything you want.
3th - The shape, it's ugly, let's admit it, more than ever if compared with the real Avante, whose it shares the name (added with "Super" moreover).
4th - Too complicated. We call it "Ministry for complication of simple affairs" also known as Ockham's razor. Why, when you have an easy solution, searching for a complicated one?

My 2 cents.

Max

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The TD4 has sold well here in Japan, first two production runs were sold out rather quickly.  That might be a bit misleading because it seems that many here like to gobble up the supply of new releases and then put them on Yahoo Japan auction with a hefty price hike.  The price for a TD4 here in Japan is around $100 USD less than a Turbo Optima Mid kit. 

Apples-to-Apples,  when compared to said Turbo Optima Mid I can understand many of the comments above against the TD4.  I'm still glad Tamiya decided to give it a go.

In the future, would it be better to use those new CRP materials to make say..  a re-re Monster Racer and King Cab?  :D(yes)

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I reckon they got the colour scheme wrong, somehow that metallic blue and yellow lacks class (imho!), whereas the Astute 2022 in those classic colours is very cool looking. In fact I’m about to buy one (pre painted). Certainly as a collector and a fan of box art the Astute 2022 is the nicer of the two.

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I don't like the look of the Super Avante body. I wish they hadn't sullied the name of the Avante with this......thing.
Having said that, if they do the tamiya thing and use the same chassis with a different body it may just do ok that way.
It would be interesting to see how well these went in Japan, because as someone ^^ previously said i the thread, that is what Tamiya considers as their main market/target audience.

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After initially hating it...and even mocking the looks of it here on the forums....I ended up buying one, the limited edition kit with painted body and the yellow chassis. Seeing some of them on YouTube swayed me....it's actually a very cool looking buggy from a lot of angles.

I've also bought the limited edition, painted body Astute TD2. As you can probably tell, I really don't like painting bodies very much. :P

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On 7/4/2022 at 10:11 AM, Willy iine said:

 I'm tired of researching and buying hop ups.. I want a flagship model with all goodness inside one simple package.  :D 

 

This! ^^^
I'm tired of Tamiya selling an all plastic kit and come up with hop ups later on. I know it's a marketing strategy to sell more stock kits and parts separately but what they must understand is many people would skip buying them and get a semi-hop upped or full option kits from other brands. The XV-02 for example uses the "Pro" badge but only to see that the motor mount and dampers are aluminum. The rest of the kit is plastic and stock. Tamiya didn't even consider including some aluminum turnbuckles, wheel hexes and carbon fiber shock towers. LC Racing did that with the PGT-2R plus more. How hard is it for Tamiya to do that? It's one of the reasons why I'm hesitant to get the XV-02, and TD2 (Astute). Spending so much money for the proper hop-ups necessary for the kit(s) when they can just include them without charging too much. You pay double for buying a stock kit and adding all the hop-ups needed. 

Tamiya should just offer an all stock kit and another with full options (flagship model). Because either versions will have buyers.  

It's ridiculous what they did with the TT-02 variants. Added minor hop-ups, removed, replaced, removed again, added on, off...

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