what happens to Car Action magazine?

[Manuspain]

Hi

I post here as i don t know exactly where to do it.

I m buying car action magazine since a very long time now, and dont understand why the magazine now is nearly only for bigfoots. Where are the other cars?

Big thanks anyway to Trujillo's pages of the last one. Bruiser and mountaineers on the rocks. Great but would need to be with biggers pics and more pages as the subject is very interesting. Pics for example like Chris ones, sequences of passing a rock....

Shodog, can you do something to send the message to him? Please, more bruisers on the rocks!!!!!

Bye

Emmanuel - Manuspain -

[Shodog]

I talked to Richard about this at the last rock crawl event. I had an idea for an article that would involve obtaining an old vintage car and doing a write up on the restoration process. The problems with featuring anything vintage in RCCA is that

1. The article can't draw any potential revenue. RCCA has a target page amount for each issue. The more pages they can sell to advertisers the more money they can make. Think about it, when they test a car it's really just a 4 page advertisement for the manufacturer. Have you ever read a test that said the car was a POS?

2. Usually that manufactuer no longer produces the vehicle. Readers will be dissapointed that they can't buy the cars. It doesn't help the manufactuer sell any current cars through showing their old stuff old. The only exception to this would be to feature re-releases in the vintage corner.

The only way Richard got away with his vintage corner in R/C Car magazine is that is was on page and many of the parts he used to restore the vehicles are currently available.

Now our very own Retro R/C is writing for the R/C Car magazine vintage corner. I look forward to reading his future articles.

Jim

[Tamiya1/10]

RC Car Action Mag. represents the current trend of the RC industry, where the money is. Collectors represent a small small part if any to the RC mfg. How many 9 to 16 year old can affort a vintage model like the sand scorcher/rough rider, avante/egress or any of the 3spds and the cost to fix them up. That is why none of the factory would make any of the metal cars used to put out by kyosho, Tamiya or AYK. Only collectors like these work or art similar to GM or Ford won't built another 57 Chevy with 450 cu. in engine or the Shelby Mustand. The cost is too much and doesn't perform like the current CAD design carbon material speed demons, the number don't justify them.

[minijosh]

Stupid loser unjustifiable numbers. Why don't they ever add up anymore?

[Toykid]

Hi Jim et all,

To counter your points Jim, as with R/C Car mag publishers could indeed benefit by running Vintage topic articles.

1. They would increase the readership of the magazine, i.e. people that would not normally buy the mag would now subscribe - I did to R/C car for that exact reason.

2. As with all advertising the bigger the circulation the more they can charge for advertising. Nearly all of us have a modern day runner or need some sort of RC gear from hobby shops at some point.

3. Those that like to read that article about the car they once had might find themselves bitten with the RC bug once again and before they know it racing a T-Maxx at their local club.

Now I do not know the numbers but I would suspect that one could not start a niche mag based solely on Vintage RC just yet. Maybe, maybe not. But I do believe that there are enough of us (vintage enthusiasts) that all self respecting mags could benefit from a vintage RC section. Are you listening RC Car Action?

Toykid.

[DJTheo]

quote:Now I do not know the numbers but I would suspect that one could not start a niche mag based solely on Vintage RC just yet. Maybe, maybe not. But I do believe that there are enough of us (vintage enthusiasts) that all self respecting mags could benefit from a vintage RC section. Are you listening RC Car Action?

id="quote">id="quote">

Few years ago such a effort existed, Ebay seller auctions! still sells some copies from time to time but I guess it failed financially []

[ibense]

I m Manuspain in Ibense house. My DSL is off.

I wasn t talking about vintage cars in RC, i was just talking about touring, buggies, micro, miniZ.....

Why can we only find bigfoots in Car Action?

Bye

Emmanuel - Manuspain

[El Mexican]

Although RCCA has always been an extremely conservative magazine in terms of car reviews, I have a couple of issues (circa end of the 80') that pretty much say that the Tamiya Egress and Avante are expensive ****.

In one 4wd shoot-out(shutout?) vs. Kyosho's Turbo Optima Mid, a Schumacher Cat, and a Yokomo C4 Dogfighter they dismantle the Avante for being very hard to build and costly.

The Egress review, with the car in the cover of the magazine, basically says that Tamiya have not corrected the problems of the Avante, and again, that its not worth the price.

Today, IMHO, RCCA has become a gigantic piece of advertising.

[sosidge]

To reply to Manuspain's question...

Why is car action dominated by trucks? Easy, that's what a lot of the market is now. Racers have always been in the minority compared to bashers, and now these trucks are so powerful and so capable off-road that they have huge appeal to the basher market.

More and more trucks are being released by the unnheard of Far East companies, so they get reviewed. Also, more and more companies are selling products aimed at the nitro trucks.

It's similar to the reasons they don't run large Retro articles - the market dictates what it makes sense to spend money on.

[DJTheo]

quote:Why is car action dominated by trucks? Easy, that's what a lot of the market is now. Racers have always been in the minority compared to bashers, and now these trucks are so powerful and so capable off-road that they have huge appeal to the basher market.

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Wouldnt generalize that, I think in many european and asian markets still touring cars dominate the market, unfortunatelly...

[WillyChang]

quote:

Originally posted by DJTheo

Wouldnt generalize that, I think in many european and asian markets still touring cars dominate the market, unfortunatelly...

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id="quote">id="quote">

TCs are the most actively raced, for sure... but for home bashing

its still usually an offroader of some type - everything from a

1/8th buggy to the Maxx genre trucks of today.

Sales evidence suggests about 10-20 'bashers' are sold for every

serious racing chassis that leaves the shop. And most of these

racing kits are sold to the same few racers who don't read RCCA.

[DJTheo]

I didn't talk about serious racing chassis, just on road tourers, just check on every LHS how many Tx0y's correspond to an off roader, at least here in Germany... [V]

[mud4fun]

Hi guys, I stopped buying RC car magazines some time ago as they all were dominated by touring cars (YAWN). I don't race my cars at a club (I stopped going as I didn't like the attitude of the few serious racers towards those that went for fun) but rather I race with friends in the garden or in local parks etc. I happended to pick up a copy of RCCR (Radio Control Car Racer) recently to check if things had changed and on a positive note the cover actually had a buggy on it!!! Hopefully this is a sign that the magazines are gaining some common sense and have started to serve the many rather than concentrate on the few hardcore touring car racers!

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As I have said many time before buggies/trucks are better value for money for bashing as they can run on a multitude of surfaces. A buggy can be hopped up to achieve near touring car performance on tarmac and yet a touring car hasn't a chance of being used off road like a buggy.

[Twmaster]

Sadly all magazines are sales tools not really useful items IMHO. I have yet to see a <car|boat|airplane> magazine that ever slammed a **** product. Instead you see 4 page ads, er, I mean, stories about a product that is often not more than a direct copy of the manufacturers sales brochure. (Anybody ever own firebird plane??)

I will once in a while buy Flying Models only because they do have some airplane stuff I am interested in. Other than that I don't buy advertising, oops. I mean magazines.

[mud4fun]

TWMASTER, how correct you are! I just bought another copy of RCCR today and at first glance it appears that 50% of the issue is dedicated to off road (albiet alot of nitro) but alas most of it is advertising, the only editorial is to do with touring cars......[] They do however cover some race meets around the country including off road ones but these are for pro drivers (most work sponsored) with mega buck budgets. Am I the only one that thinks that 90% of the RC car buying public are being ignored by these people/magazines?????

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I was in my LHS today buying some new NiCD's and I asked him what percentage of RC car sales were toruing cars - answer 50%, then how many of those touring cars race at the local clubs - answer 10% - so let me see, 90%+ of the cars sold are not raced and half are off road buggies/nitro trucks/EP monster trucks. Why is the bias towards touring cars in these magazines?? No wonder sales are falling!!!

[sosidge]

As a racer, I find most of what's in the mag's pretty useless.

Racer (UK mag) has no in-depth articles, and the reviews are laughable - frequently written without even running the car (or even building some of them).

Radio Race Car (the other UK mag), has always been a bit more informative for the racer, and now has regular good articles.

Race meetings are covered because they are actually events - someone driving a car around there garden isn't. And not everyone who races at nationals is sponsored (far from it), and many aren't mega-bucks (although BRCA competitors do spend a lot). There's meetings out there that are crying out for competitors - including classes like 1/10th electric off-road, and one-make championships including the Tamiya Eurocup, so it's far from exclusive.

What would you like from a Radio control car magazine? Pictures of other people jumping over stuff? Concours bodyshells?

[WillyChang]

quote:

Originally posted by sosidge

...What would you like from a Radio control car magazine?

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id="quote">id="quote">

Back in the 1980s, main purpose for an RC rag was to read

about all the 'new' stuff that a kiddy couldn't afford.

So these days, the Net has taken over this purpose

by being faster and similarly informative.

If anyone were wondering what has happened of all those old

RCCA stalwarts who've since disappeared from its pages...

they've gone on to form their own magazine "RC Driver".

Before they went to press, there were all these blurbs about

how different & better they were going to be etc etc etc.

Promised a whole different modern concept etc etc etc.

http://www.radiocontroldriver.com/

But now that I've gotten their 1st issue.... hmm... seems

to be very much like what RCCA is anyway.

Worst of all was... their reader's ride section is pathetic!

Pictures of cars that are just about box stock, maybe even RTR.

Heck, for sure they were sent some big pix on some vintage

Tamiya machinery (no comment [|)])... but none made it to press.

[mud4fun]

quote:What would you like from a Radio control car magazine? Pictures of other people jumping over stuff? Concours bodyshells?

id="quote">id="quote">

Hi sosidge, I would prefer a more balanced editorial to cover all aspects of the hobby not just racing. If you read the posts in this club you see articles on repairing shells, building custom trucks, trialling etc etc. I was not specifically targeting my comments at RCCR as nearly all the magazines I have looked at are the same - basically adverts for new releases.

[tony gray(2)]

As a current r/c magazine editor of some many years I can tell you now that ALL magazines are ruled exclusively by revenue (i.e advertising). You can say what you like about selling more issues by putting in such and such a story, but I can assure you that the profits made by a magazine are virtually all made on sales of advertisingand the cover price is a very small component of the overall revenue.

So...if the manufacturer/distributor wants to push trucks/TC's/buggies etc etc, then that's what is tested and reviewed.

Thats the way it's always been and always will be, simple as that. I'm not saying it's right but it's a fact of life.

[DJTheo]

You are propably very right in that Tony. The question then changes to why do companes promote their touring cars more? My guess would be as they have more possible damages then for example monster trucks and also make fun only in competitive racing where you need hop-ups and more spares and we all know that the big profit isnt in the cars but their spares and hop-ups, try to order from example a Tamiya car from spares, it can cost more then the doulbe. Any other guess?

Cheers

[mud4fun]

Thanks for the response Tony, I guess the market for RC mag sales is relatively small so the adverts tend to dominate. I am used to reading LRO (Land Rover Owner) or LRM (Land Rover Monthly) and they provide superb editorial, nicely balanced between the people who repair, those who modify, those who race and those that just want to explore gently with no damage. The adverts are well laid out and don't dominate the magazine. I find that in most RC car mags it is very difficult to spot what is actual editorial from adverts. I guess this is deliberate so that you are forced to look at adverts whilst searching for proper articles? If you colour coded a tab on the top of all your editorial/articles in one colour and a different colour for adverts it would be better [] but then I'd just skip the adverts......

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Don't we have any representitives from Tamiya in this club? I would like to hear Tamiya's reason for concentrating on touring cars. Yes, I know they make buggies but they really are poor compared to those of 10-15 years ago.

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In fact even those buggies made by other manufacturers are not really suitable for home use as they tend to have open deck chassis for low weight in racing. As it rains 50% of the time in this country I prefer a car with better weather/dirt protection. The TB01 was a good car for this reason as it included an integrated dust cover but not much use off road around the garden. I think Tamiya got it spot on with the SRB's and have gone downhill since.....

[tony gray(2)]

There's a simple answer to why the manufacturers are mainly interested in promoting Touring Cars and enormous Monster Trucks. They're what sells! Like it or not, monster trucks are the buggies of the day now and they're what most Off-Road stuff will be from now on. The 80's/early 90's heyday of Off-Road is gone and people who want to play in the dirt have gone to trucks or race on a serious level. The days when loads of people bought entry-level off-roaders have gone and those people now buy Touring Cars instead.

Why? Well I'm not entirely sure but I'd suggest that having an 'association' with a real life car has something to do with it. Most buggies look like..umm.. nothing that really exists and so dont have anywhere near the pulling power that a Scale Touring Car shell (i.e. anything not made by Protoform) does.

[mud4fun]

Sad news indeed if that is true. Monster trucks are fine for some things but just aren't as flexible as a buggy. Touring cars are pretty much useless to me as I run in my garden, local park, building site etc. I am working on a solution - fitting a touring car shell to my thundershot - gives me scale looks and great off road performance then I just need to market it...... []

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Like all things though, it will turn full circle at some point. I already see a lack of interest in touring cars where I am. My daughter and her friends in the village all run buggies and more and more of her school friends are getting them too. Give it 5 years or so and Tamiya may well be forced to revisit this market or lose out completely.