How much do you think it costs tamiya?

[dhes2809]

Anyone have any idea how much it costs tamiya to buy the rights from the car companys they base there models on? Its just they dont seem to bring as many up to date road cars out anymore. It seems now they are mostly race cars with big spoilers and body kits rarther than the normal road car. I for one would love it if they would bring models like the new BMW M3 CSL or the Audi RS6. When I buy a new body I tend to look for one that I can paint a normal colour and one that looks as close to the road car as posible, but when you have things like the Tamiya calibra you have no chance of ever making it look normal. I know in the past models like the VW Golf V5 were sold along with the real thing in the dealers do you think this was part of the deal with VW. "Yes you can copy our car but we want a couple of thousand to sell in our showrooms"

[Razer]

I don't know, but I do have a related story which may be helpful:

The company I work for was making motorized children's vehicles similar to Power Wheels. They were interested in licensing the Dodge Ram pickup or Hummer H2, as those were the only two American trucks at the time which were not already licensed by Power Wheels. Daimler-Chrysler wanted 15%, probably based on sales figures. The execs decided it was too much. I imagine that most product licensing works similarly. The added cost of licensing could make the final price of the product too high to be competitive.

[terry.sc]

The cost of licensing the Ferrari body for the F201 chassis means the generic Tamiya F201 kit with the extra carbon printed body included costs less than the Ferrari kit. Licensing is usually a percentage of the profits, 10 -15% being common. This is why Protoform have started making their own design bodies, and Parma sells an F360 body and not a Ferrari 360 shell.

At work we licenced Disney characters for displays, but pulled out when they upped their licence fee to 20%.

[mymonsterbeetleisbroken]

well tamiya did have the attitude once to just go and make a chevey truck with chevey badges stamped all over it without "permission"

and ended up having to remove every chevey badge in sight!

poor clod buster []