Vintage - NIB vs Shelf Queen vs Runner

[hedge]

I suppose I am new to this as I am restoring my first (and may be last) scorcher, however like so many others in these forums the hobby was a part of my early to mid teens before real cars and life got in the way so I am a returning newbie.

For me when I was younger it was the thrill of racing that appealed, especially buggies. Don't get me wrong I also got a lot of enjoyment out of making parts, especially chassis but it was all to win, gain performance and not to create the best looking model. I first started with a holiday buggy which once built was driven outside my house for a month or so. Then my father found me a club to go to where I started racing. I went through a Grass Hopper and a Lamborghini Countache (Oh how I wish I still had her) learning the tricks of the trade. I got used to racing on different surfaces as the club I was with in St Albans grew from being in a dusty Church Hall racing on wooden floors to Racing at a school with both indoor and outdoor tracks. My first competitive car was the Hot Shot and with this I entered the Tamiya Nationals (UK) around 1985. From the Hot Shot I then bought a Schumacher Cat (one of the first) and raced at more and more events around the country with varying degrees of success. Finally just as everyone was coming around to the Cat being "the" car of the moment I swapped it for a PB Mini Mustang (doh!) which I have to say was fantastic but not quite the Cat.

Well now I get onto my Point  - my struggle with this new found hobby I am after some insight and hopefully understanding to help me get off on the right foot.

1) I don't understand NIB. For me I want a car not a box to stare at. I understand the investment side but I would no more bore you with my share holdings than show you a box.

2) The shelf queen. Now this I understand, I believe the Sand Scorcher to be a thing of beauty. I will quite happily look at it a think that really is a very nice model - drives like a cast iron bath tub out of the box but still a thing of beauty to behold.

3) Runner now this I almost get, old cars running again. However these cars crash and break and some parts are just impossible to find so how can you justify running a say Blazer at full tilt only to have radio failure and see it disappear under a car or head long into a wall. Unless you have a bottomless pit of money you could be off the road for months.

So what am I missing?

My idea is give me a 1980's shelf queen / project to look at and a modern day race spec RC car to throw around knowing that the spares are just a click or phone call away. You can keep your NIB either build it and shelf it. If you don't tell me about it I promise not to talk about Hedge funds vs Spread betting.

Ramblings over, thanks for reading this far, I ask Is there some shop other than ebay where you can buy spares for less than a weeks wages? Or do people (you maybe) who race these old cars around simply have enough cash to buy the spares regardless? Let me know.

Thanks

 

[Wandy]

Well it depends what vintage car you are running but parts for most of them aren't THAT expensive!....and anyway this is why Tamiya are doing re-releases...to cater for this modern phenomenon of 30 somethings wanting to relive the old days for small cost.

I agree with you about NIB though, a pretty pointless excercise if you ask me. I can just about understand owning a NIB of the ONE car a person had in the 1980's (since most of us were only fortunate to own one at a time back in those days) to relive the moment of looking at/opening the box when they got it, but owning endless amounts of NIBs and then stacking them in a cupboard never to be seen by anyone except in a few website photos just seems like excess boasting to me. Still, each to their own I suppose.

I cant even justify shelf queens anymore. I have sold all of mine off and any car I own is a runner. Most of the vintage stuff, Bruiser/Hilux/SRBs excluded can be bought for around £100 in used but good condition and it is pretty easy to clean and polish up a runner to make it look almost as good as a true shelf queen.

I  just cant justify paying hundreds of £s for something just to look at it. My motto is "If it dont get used then it dont get kept!"

 

[Guest DImblum]

I feel the same way. I have built nearly seven cars: Fox, Frog, Hornet, GrassHopper, Grasshopper 2 SuperG, Baja King and a Sand Rover (almost complete). Nearly all of the cars have custom or very vintage hop-ups that cannot be replaced. Because of that, I only run the GrassHopper and the Baja King. I could technically run the Frog and the Hornet, but I would really need to build another in order to preserve the hop-ups on my current cars. I want my self queens to retain their looks for years to come. The cost is to great to risk any damage to the parts.

When the HotShot is re-re'd, I'm going to buy two - one for display and one to run.

Dan

 

[Singapore_959]

 

To each his own pleasure!

 

I don't have any new cars, and I run and race them all.  They don't break if you don't crash them and resist the urge to repeatedly do unrealisticlly high jumps  (6 feet long, 5 feet high just today with the Dyna Storm [] []  []  - but it was an offroad track! ).

 

And almost every part can be found on ebay with a little patience. If you like the vintage cars don't be afraid to run them!

 And if you can do it get two kits, one for spares! It's cheaper in the long run usually.

 

Have fun and post up picts! []

 From today:

 

[au]

 

[mymonsterbeetleisbroken]

I've got only 2 NIB tamiya's, an original Clod Buster and a pretty rare Super Blackfoot.

I'm going to build the Blackfoot and make it into a box art shelf queen. It's a good looking truck but it would be silly to run it, as spares are impossible to find and i've got a few similar runners anyway.

The clod was originally going to be built, again as a shelfer. But i've ended up keeping it in the box for now. I dont mind it being NIB, and whenever i show some one my r/c's they always like seeing all the mint clod bits still in their packets - most people say keep it in the box! [] 

If i was ever going to build it, i'd have to add some vintage hop ups. Otherwise it would just be another old clod buster []

 

[Gruntfuggly]

Hey Singapore_959 - I admire your bravery - but what do you do when you break the D5 on your Dyna Storm? [:|]

[billg4]

run them all

I run my Blazing Blazer with newer relible radio equipment. I may not rock crawl it because I had it chromed, but I do run it

 here it is before finishing touches

[Singapore_959]

Hi Gruntfuggly!

 "Singapore says" []  I buy whole cars for parts - it's much cheaper and they are easier to get!  I have 3 cars now, two runners, one slowly being 'used'.  I have only broken 1 D5 infact, that was from over enthusiastic attempts at undoing a stuck front wheel nut [] [] [:'(]  

 

I find it is the - always! - RIGHT rear hub (C1 part) that breaks the most. I can't understand why - the heavier (motor) side is left.

And the C parts can still be bought new from shops in Germany (do a recent thread search, I found out via that thread).

 Truely, complete cars are the way. I got both mine for 90euro, 1 was perfect, 1 had the ...right rear hub broken! And I already had spare parts, it was an instant runner untill the second car was given to a friend to race (report coming!) and he needed to use the third car for spares after some unlucky incidents!

 More picts comming!

Run the vintage cars! []

[au]

[3doorpete]

I also cannot really understand NIB collectors. I have 3 NIB's myself, but 1 is to be used as parts for my Blitzer Beetle (Stadium thunder is cheaper, discontinued, but less rare and has same parts in the main), 1 is waiting to be built when I have time and 1 is a Midnight Pumpkin Chrome edition that I am waiting to build with my son when he is old enough and bought in case it is discontinued.

 Shelf queens I can understand in all forms and for all the reasons above. My own reason for shelfers is that I like to run my cars, but get depressed if I have a roll or accident or they get too dirty, so by having 2, 1 runner and 1 shelf queen, i can appreciate the asthetics of the car unspoilt immaculate shelf queen and have guilt free driving of the runner as well. Having my cake and eating it as they say! Of course with my more vintage cars this can get expensive....

[Bluefoot]

Well I'm not into NIBs myself, but I do have quite a few. The only reason they are NIB is that I haven't got round to building them yet.  Having said that I can understand those who do collect vintage nibs - the thrill of the chase and the satisfaction that comes with finally gaining ownership of a rare piece. Modern nibs? - I have some, but they have been put away for the day that they will get built or used for spare parts. The possible exception in my "collection" of nibs is my Hilux. The price I paid for it would allow me to build it without feeling guilty, but then if I sold it as a nib Hilux 3-speed I could buy three nice built Hiluxes! What price do I put on the fleeting experience of busting into those blister packs?

Shelf Queens. I have quite a few of those. Some I have been lucky enough to purchase in mint condition, and some I have restored or built. I find that if I put time and effort into making a model look good then I don't want to go out and trash it. Same with the rare ones.  I have some shelfers that occasionally get taken for a quiet drive indoors (gotta rotate those tyres to avoid flat-spots).

Runners. Most of my cars are runners - or potential runners. The ones I do run regularly expect to take a few knocks and rolls, but I don't go all-out to destroy them. I'm trying to teach the kids that when you run a car full-tit into the kerb, bits will break and fly off and the car won't work any more. Unfortunately they know that dad has a large pile of spare parts and a hot-melt glue gun!

[HunterZero]

The whole NIB thing has been discussed before in an earlier thread. 

But basically... The early kits have the extra appearl of really nice blister pack presentation inside the box. This is a lost art these days, a victim to reducing production costs of the kits. How many of the 30th anniversary Porsches do you think will be built? How many do you think they would have sold if they just threw all the bits into a shoebox?

Add to this the fact that older NIBs are rare, and you have a special appeal - Exclusivity.

When you inspect the contents of a NIB, you have that great feeling that you could enjoy building it if you wanted to, and have a shiny new car. Once you've built up the car, you've 'used up' the enjoyment of building the car out of the box. With a NIB, you know that you have one for a rainy day, if you wanted to. A NIB has potential.

For those lucky enough to get a new kit back when they were young, the first sight they had of their toy was NIB. A NIB can give you a bit of that feeling of Christmas morning back in 1986.

You can see all the parts to the car laid out, and admire all the parts. When it's a new built, you can't see a good number of the parts like the gearbox internals.

For the completely anal... Once you've built a new built, there might be one or two aspects of the build that didn't go quite right - some runs in the paintwork, or a problem with a decal, or a screwdriver slipped and scraped a part. A NIB kit is 'perfect'.

Now sealed NIB, I don't get.

- HZ