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Are we happy with Tamiya's Re Release So Far?

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It seems this site has provided a lot of good product feed back and comments to the Tamiya organization and they have taken it in to consideration.

So far I am happy with the choices and changes Tamiya has made on the re-re models. The re-re's are not an exact, but is good enough to keep the kid inside most of us happy and attract new comers to the Tamiya brand. Sure Tamiya could have done it better in this area or that, but they can't please everyone. I would grade Tamiya a mark of 90/100 eventhough my interests in Tamiya has decreased in the last few years, but the re-re has turn it back up a notch or two and I have replaced the number of kits I have sold with re-re's.

If everyone /lots of people want it bad enough, it will come true...there is really a Santa.... living in Japan and we know him as "Tamiya".

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I love the recent re-releases for some reason. Most of them are kits I would buy if I could afford them. I would not buy the Holiday Buggy, but I would definitely get an Avante mostly because it looks cool and looks like a fun build. I will be getting the Wild One, maybe even 2 to do in 2 different color schemes as this was my very first kit as a kid. Overall, I'd agree. You can't please everyone, and the improvements made were based on testing and feedback. Tamiya seems like the only company with real heritage and one that wants to make sure that that doesn't die out. I would say that the last good consumer model (not pro) that was good was the DB01.

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Only compliant i have is where is the Re Re Fox.

Gee Tamiya it was such a good fast buggy and you re re everything else almost but not the best 2wd you did in the 80's.???????

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I've been selling my vintages just to buy the re-releases. I mainly enjoy the build, from opening the box to completinig the last screw.

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Time for some product feedback? Here are my opinions.

The re-releases that are close to the original vintage designs are a great service to the nostalgics and collectors who want them. Design improvements to address known problems are welcome to make these models more durable. Great examples include Grasshopper, Hornet, Frog, Lunch Box, Midnight Pumpkin, Subaru Brat, Hot Shot, Boomerang, Mad Bull, Stadium Blitzer, Blitzer Beetle, Buggy Champ, Sand Scorcher, Avante, FAV, XR311, Bruiser, Toyota TOM's 84C, Mercedes C11, Mazda 787B, Ferrari F40, Ford F150 Baja, etc.

The re-releases or vintage-inspired models that are old shells put on top of modern chassis are in some cases terrible. Examples include Blackfoot Extreme, Blackfoot III, Sand Rover, Street Rover, Mud Blaster II. Please do not bring out a F150 Ranger XLT, Blazing Blazer, or Monster Beetle on a WR-series chassis! If anything, bring back the ORV chassis with design improvements to make it more durable, then put the Blackfoot, Mud Blaster, and Monster Beetle shells on it. If it's going to be a re-release, make it closer to the original but fix the known problem areas.

In terms of modern designs, here are some more thoughts...

2WD Buggies: The DN01/TRF201 are good buggies; I'm happy with those. Scrap the DT02 and make the DN01 the entry-level kit.

4WD Buggies: The DB01/DB01R are also good buggies; keep those in the lineup. Keep the DF02 for the bashers among us; it survives brushless power quite well, but give us an adjustable motor mount and 48 pitch spur. Scrap the DB02 and give us a plastic version of the TRF502x, just like the DB01 is the plastic version of the TRF501x. The current center gearbox and weak rear joint cup on the DB02 need to go.

Trucks: Keep the CC01, CR01, and High-Lift 3 Speeds. I cross shop HPI and Associated; by not having a true short course truck in the market you are opening the doors for me to look at other manufacturers' lineups. Bring a DN01/TRF201-based short course truck to market; we've seen the videos of a prototype running around before. Bring a HPI Wheely King competitor to market with a modified CR01 -- the Lunch Box doesn't cut it. Bring a HPI Firestorm or Associated T4.1 competitor to market -- there's talk of stadium trucks coming back. Do something to address the HPI Savage Flux -- the Clod Buster and the WR-series chassis are nowhere near as capable as the Savage Flux. It may be time for a CR02 to address the people who do competition crawling. There's a lot of work to do in the truck lineup.

Touring cars: I'm pretty happy with the TB03 and TA05V2 chassis, but the TT01 could use some more refinement. For the TT01 give us 48-pitch and 96-pitch spurs, adjustable motor mounts, better bearing placement to keep the bevel shafts under control, different bevel/diff ring gear options for drift countersteer modifications, and tighter tolerances for suspension arm mounts. How about a TT02? I also wish you would bring a wider variety of bodies, wheels, and tires to market like HPI has, and bring some performance bodies to market like what Protoform has.

1/8: Is there a product roadmap for the TRF801X and TRF801XT? There seems to be an endless supply of them at Tamiya USA's scratch/dent section. Is E-buggy and E-truggy next on your roadmap?

General comments: Stop shipping nylon bushings, friction dampers, nonadjustable suspensions, and plastic prop shafts in your modern kits. We all know these are the first items to be upgraded after driving the vehicle a few times, so use your purchasing power to supply these items at better prices by bundling them in the kits to begin with. It's ok to ship the re-releases with these low-end items because that's what the vintage kits came with. But when it comes to the modern products, the baseline content has to be better.

Please send your greases to the USA. Please include LiPo cutoff and BEC in your ESCs. Please update your RTRs with 2.4 GHz radio systems.

Thanks.

-Paul

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+1 to all the points you have put so well .That about covers it other that to say FOR HEAVENS SAKE STOP PUTTING OLD BODYS ON NEW CHASSIS AND JUST HACKING HOLES IN THEM TO MAKE THEM FIT . Rant over :blink:

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Holiday Buggy and Sand Rover on the DT02 wasn't really that bad of an idea, Tamiya just didn't do it right. You only need to look at some of the 'fixed' ones appearing in showrooms. The original chassis was fragile and a poor performer to say the least. The DT02 is durable and cheap, but they needed to make the chassis fit the body, not the other way around.

Perfect example of how is should have been done. Kudos to dr.roberts for the fine job.

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i've seen it Mark . its a great piece of work . At some point i still fancy doing a Sand Rover SRB swb though as i think with a mock engine and 70's style alloys it would look so period correct . Side pods made in the same way as i did the Funco maybe ?

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I think there are opennings at Tamiya for bromvw and speedy w beans in the product development branch. But I have feeling the company bean counters will not get along with you two. :blink:

And that is how I would've like Tamiya re-release the street rover body the way Dr. Roberts did his. The chassis for this semi re-re is good enough for me but the body and wheels/tires are the icing on the cake. I guess Tamiya don't want to upset all the die hard original only collectors that paid unreason amount of money for an original.

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I think there are opennings at Tamiya for bromvw and speedy w beans in the product development branch. But I have feeling the company bean counter will not get along with you two. :blink:

And that is how I would've like Tamiya re-release the street rover body the way Dr. Roberts did his. The chassis for this semi re-re is good enough for me but the body and wheels/tires are the icing on the cake. I guess Tamiya don't want to upset all the die hard original only collectors that paid unreason amount of money for an original.

:( sorten a SRB chassis - piece of grf COST saving over std . Set of decent 70's Mag look alloys - loads around that Tamiya could bulk buy for peanuts . Side pods . very easy to make a mold for . Might add say £20 - £30 to the RRP of a Scorcher kit but how much better would it look ? AS for the std re re sand rover ermmmmmmmmmm WHO the heck at tamiya HQ thought that was up to it ? bit of effort as Dr Roberts showed and it could have being so much better .

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For me, the tinkering and improving is half the fun. And I love seeing the ingenious ways that people have come up with to improve on Tamiya's designs. I don't mind at all the "faults" that some of the cars have, or the unfinished look and feel of the not-really-re-releases. It allows them to serve as a starting point, and the exclusion of fancier parts makes the kits cheap enough to not worry about hacking them up. I do wish they'd stop knocking holes in body shells, but again, as we've seen, even that can be remedied.

As for the pure re-releases, I'm pleased. They've done an excellent job of keeping the soul and spirit of the original cars, while making a few small improvements for durability's sake. And I was especially happy with the inclusion of some extra parts in the Hotshot kit, for future replacement of known fragile or wear-prone parts. It's a great way of taking the fear out of running the car without sacrificing the original design. I do wish they'd make ball bearings standard across the board; they're not as expensive as they used to be, and those plastic bushings really are the most useless objects in the entire hobby. And I also kind of wish they'd include a mechanical speed controller along with the ESC in the re-re's, so they you had the option of really getting nostalgic if you wanted to. (Or if nothing else, be reminded how high-maintenance and fussy they were.)

Also, if they're going to re-re a chassis, but not all variants of it, what about a "conversion kit"? For example, a Lancia body, wheels, and tires all in one box, to give your re-re Frog a new look? And not just at Japan-only trade shows, like the Wheeler body.

What bothers me most about their modern kits is not the low spec, but the low parts count. It's so dead simple to build the new kits that it's sort of not even any fun. I'm not talking about 3 speeds or tanks or race cars, but the "alphabet soup" chassis: DT, TT, DF, WR, CC, M, etc. They're nothing but a few complex molded plastic pieces held together by a few self-tapping screws. Shake the box hard enough, and it'd probably assemble itself. Honestly, I don't know why they bother with the expert-built cars; if you can't assemble a TT01 without help in no more than a couple hours, RC may not be your thing. The older designs weren't as efficient maybe, or as structurally sound, but the time it takes to put them together makes it feel like an achievement, and the metal pieces makes it feel like a real machine. I'd like to see some new designs that aren't so plasticky.

Overall grade right now: B+. Still my favorite RC company, but mostly for the re-releases.

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I'm very pleased with the re-res. The minor differences and improvements have been well thought out to cure known problems and there are lots of folks like me who never had the chance to own the originals due to money or other constraints - now I can and do buy as many as I want.

Thanks Mr. Tamiya!! It's not all that often life gives you a second chance at a missed opportunity, so I'm grabbing it.

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I do love my re-re's, i would never have some of the cars if they didn't bring them back out, my collection so for is sand scorcher, brat, fav, humvee, hornet, pumpkin. i have a few orignal cars too like my restored blackfoot but with the re-re's im not too scared to run them. my only problem is i dont have enough spare cash to buy the ones that keep coming out, i really want a hotshot and a bruiser, then i hear about the wildone lol, my want list keeps getting bigger and bigger.

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Only compliant i have is where is the Re Re Fox.

Gee Tamiya it was such a good fast buggy and you re re everything else almost but not the best 2wd you did in the 80's.???????

+1. I hope it's coming... I'd buy at least 2.

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I’m totally please with most of the re’s and related comments you all already pointed out… I would also like to see the re’s stay as close as possible to the originals…such as the case with the Blackfoot. I really want a re-Blackfoot, but only if it were on an ORV platform.

I too am waiting on the re-Fox! I re-want one BAD!!!!

My favorite part of the re’s is the fact that I can share the fun of RC’s with both of my kids…affordably and in re-true Tamiya style. It is so much fun bashing around the yard with my youngsters with some re-classics…priceless!

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I am totally happy with the rere's and I hope Tamiya keeps doing it! Can't afford them all but at least I get to choose.

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I agree with what has been said so far. Re-re like hotshot, boomerang, supershot, bruiser, etc are great. My only peeve with the hotshot is that the diffs are weak with the aluminium gears. A ball diff or STEEL gears in the diffs would be a huge improvement in terms of longevity, especially when using brushless motors. The sand rover re-re and Blackfoot mud blaster rehashes don't seem that popular. A suspect that a genuine re-re monster beetle with ORV chassis and a bush devil rear gearbox and suspension. I'd like the chance to get a re-re-re Top force, although I suspect it might be a bit pricey now. Last time I looked at one they were about £150 when the pound was worth nearly 2USD.

Can't actually think of any other re-res I would like to see now. An Egress would be nice but out of my price range as it would probably be bruiser type money. I'd say nearly all the good stuff has already been re-re'd. It would be nice to see more new models that have been designed with the spirit of the old scale cars in mind, like the F350 high lift. maybe a crossover between the 1/14rigs and 1/10 off road scalers. A 6x6 with a 3 speed box and 1/10 off road size tyres (~94mm, high lift size.) There are plenty of 6x6 trucks that could be made into very nice scale model with reasonable off road performance.

The TXT-1 has been around a long time now and it would be nice to see a TXT-2. Steel gears instead of aluminium please, and steel centre driveshafts. (An option for roller hubs or a one way for the front end would also be good). Directly mounted shocks rather than cantilevers and a short clodbuster size wheelbase with a nice hardbody on top.

What else is there to re-re now worth having, other than an egress? Porsche 959 was overly complicated and could only be run on bowling green smooth surfaces. maybe a re-re monster beetle, but unlikely given the re-re blackfoot and mud blaster efforts recently.

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