Growing your fleet - decisions?

[TurnipJF 9192]

Hello there.

 

I was just wondering what thought processes you go through when deciding what to add next to your respective fleets/collections. I guess there are many approaches, varying from want=get impulse buys through to long and arduous searches for that special model, and everything in between.

 

So what approach do you take? How do you decide what to buy next?

[Jason1145 3986]

I thought I would add a different style of vehicle, if I have a touring car, get a Wheeler, or get a buggy.. That was the plan but I ended up with two touring cars and 2 wheelers! There is just so many great designs of similar car I end up wanting them all, for example, I just got Blitzer Beetle and now yearn for a stadium Blitzer despite them being so similar.

[MAD RACER 566]

Arrgh

I can't stop but buying has slowed right down due to space and less funds to play with.

I do know if Kyosho brings out a Re re Turbo Optima I will get one due to being my first race car. I do have a Turbo Optima as a runner but the Re re's always perform better. 

[Kingfisher 1171]

2 minutes ago, Jason1145 said:

There is just so many great designs of similar car I end up wanting them all.

That's the truth! There's so many build threads and pictures here that I have a feeling that I am going to end up with a stack of unbuilt kits. 

[speedy_w_beans 4272]

Hmm, I tend to alternate between variety, depth, and novelty when expanding the fleet.

• Variety can be jumping between brands, jumping between vehicle types (buggies, cars, trucks), and jumping between chassis codes to try a little bit of everything.
• Depth is getting all the kits or body shells in a series.  There are only a few chassis codes where I've gone this path.
• Novelty is really anything fun and silly like the Lunch Box, Tumbling Bull, or Heavy Dump Truck.  These are (supposed to be) low-stress and casual.

That's pretty much it.

 

 

[MadInventor 3884]

I usually only buy Tamiya, or maybe Kyosho, but having owned most of Tamiyas vintage off roaders in one form or another, I tend now to build my own models to 'grow the fleet'. The only problem is that once a scratch built model is done, there is no way I could ever bring myself to part with them, so good or bad, I end keeping them. I usually only buy one of each model, although there are exceptions (I had 3 TXT-1s at one point, and also 2 hotshots and a supershot). Not many impulse buys now though, as I'm short on space, and bargains on ebay are very scarce it seems these days.

 

 

 

[Terz1 745]

I have gone the nostalgic route when buying my tamiya. Lots of great memories from childhood of tamiyas with my brother and friends so I'll work through those first. These include clodbuster, bullhead, avante, boomrang, hornet and mudblaster to name a few, so a nice start and varied. Some rear wheel drive, four wheel drive, 4 wheel steer. All tend fo be off road for ease of use and where I live.

Once these are bought I have a few kits that I want such as a lunchbox, xv01, stadium blitzer, sandscorcher and a bruiser. After this if space allows I'll try to buy as many different chassis types I can to get the best tamiya experience.

I really want a Hilux monster racer. Wish they'd re-re it. That would be top of the list. 

[Hibernaculum 933]

5 hours ago, TurnipJF said:

...from want=get impulse buys through to long and arduous searches for that special model, and everything in between.

So what approach do you take? How do you decide what to buy next?

I think you should ask yourself "What area of R/C am I truly passionate about?".

If there are particular cars or brands, or a particular R/C category, style, scale, kit range, or manufacturing era that you love the most, try focusing on that. You are less likely to go wrong. 

Most impulse purchases I've made over the past 25 years, I've later sold. A few I've kept, but only where they also fell into my "passion area".

Of course, your passion may also change over time. And that's ok. Your collection will just have to change with it. Nothing else you can do but live for the moment 

[Theibault 1535]

I buy whatever appeals to me at the moment. No magic formula really. Life is short. Get what excites you.

[chevelle 997]

With my Tamiya's it's mainly Nostalgia  This also means the there are multiples so I can make variants  I have ended up with 5 shot's, 3 Boomers & 2 Sabres, I have 6 Grey ORV cars & 3 Red ORV cars  My Striker needed a buddy so I got the Sonic Fighter, I had to have a Wild One but that meant I also had to have the FAV (both of them ) + a custom FAV , I always wanted and Egress so I also got the Avante & looking for a Vanquish  Then 2 non Tamiya Icons, An Original RC10 and Losi JRX2, The rest of my collection is just wants  And then there's the Mountain Rider 

[Flerbizky 225]

5 hours ago, Theibault said:

I buy whatever appeals to me at the moment. No magic formula really. Life is short. Get what excites you.

This very much. And what comes up cheap on buy and sell portals (:

[StrokerBoy 772]

I just buy what I like. There's not a lot I really want so I don't have to worry about impulse purchases or following a theme.  I'm cool with both vintage/nostalgia purchases and re-releases, and I'm not obsessed with originality or box-art so it doesn't become an obsession or a chore.  If it ain't fun, you shouldn't be doing it.

[GooneyBird 938]

I tend to buy what will enable me to have the most opportunities to run, be it because they can run where others can't, or because they're in a class I otherwise won't be able to race in.

For the indoor carpet I have a 17.5T Touring car and a 21.5T F1 car. For outdoor Tamiya Cup I have a TT01E with the spec motor. For the beach I've got a DT03, and to walk around with in the forests I've got a CC01. Along with that I have an M02 (because it was my first RC car as a kid)

I've looked at a Clodbuster, but that would mostly just do the same as the DT03. I've looked at getting a 1/12th, but there's not much racing going on for them around here. I've owned an M05 Pro V2, but sold it ultimately because the class wasn't my cup of tea. (Less 'close racing', more 'destruction derby').

[kontemax 1725]

On 11/8/2016 at 8:45 PM, TurnipJF said:

I was just wondering what thought processes you go through when deciding what to add next to your respective fleets/collections.

 

Thought processes? What thought processes?

 

Max

[firefoxussr 482]

Arduous searches for the best model of the type of chassis and body choice.  And find out how much power it can really handle.  

I also acquire runners in an economic way. 

[bjorklo 1620]

I started buying some of the cars i had back when i was a child, then it progressed to buying what ever off-road tamiya i could find a good deal on, After a while with to many cars i got this feeling that many of the cars didn't give me anything back, no good memories and no joy of having them, so i started parting with all those cars and only collecting the one's from my childhood, that said i did sell a couple of those also, and keeping the cars that facinates me and bring back memories of all the fun back then, or the one's that make me think of my childhood friends, or the one's i allways wanted as a child but couldn't get.  After the selling period my buying turned focus on the chassis i like the most and that is the avante family and Top Force and DF-01. Now i have quite a few of these and i have noticed lately that my focus has started to turn against special parts for all the cars i have, but mainly for the avante family and Top Force. So maybe for me the next focus will be stop buying and rather enjoy all the cars i have, finishing undone projects and customizing the cars i have. I know that my wallet and my wife to be would be happy then  

That said if a new release thrills me or i see a good bargin that i can flip and sell i do tend to buy it. 

[mongoose1983 3335]

The cars I like are the ones I wanted to have when I was a kid and my parents could not afford. Those and a couple more I discovered accidentally as I was getting the ones I saw at our local hobby store back in the late 80's. Off-road stuff all of them, except for one Porsche from 1984 that found its way to me later on last year

[Plopes 138]

I have no secret formula, I buy what I like which tends to be the cars we could never afford or really high end designs. I love milestone chassis and a mix of drivetrain & suspension types. I'm not into chasing numbers, definitely quality over quantity. 

[acprc 1443]

My mission is too have one of every Tamiya nitro car ever produced. Slowly getting there! A lot of my impulse buys have been sold off and now I work to the model list slowly ticking them off.

[Scouser 83]

My process is pretty simple. Is it Tamiya? Is is upgradable? Can I modify it? Will I be able to use it regularly? If the answer to 3 of these is yes, I am happy. 

[Hobbimaster 190]

I've personally built around 150+ or so Tamiya kits since the 80's. Sometimes I buy, build, then sell them off, only to realize I should have kept some of them. I started with all the wonderful kits I had seen as a kid in the hobby stores back in the 80's. Then just look for my next build, no rime or reason. A lot of times it just comes down to finances that month. I tend to lean more towards the 2wd buggy kits (frog, hornet, fast attack, ect). I really do enjoy the build process even though I may curse, and say I'll never build again after dropping a e-clip or diff ball in the carpet. I've recently told myself its ok to be a Tamiya collector, and decided to stop selling them off since some times I build the same kit multiple times after a few years. Right now I have about 35 Tamiya built kits with a few un-built kits. I guess I'll stop when my radio is completely full with 50 models.

[Shodog 1835]

I've collected all sorts of vehicles over the years. Bought what I had and what I wish I had.  

Tamiyas rereleases really burned me out on collecting. I spent thousands of dollars on rare new parts to restore my vehicles to pristine condition only see those models rereleased which makes mine as rare as sand at the beach.

So now I collect cool scale or custom vehicles that I know will never be rereleased. 

[Aleblanc 57]

I've just been growing my fleet by reading builds and simply wanting to have one after reading them. I started out with a Traxxas slash just for my daughters to play with and then discovered crawlers, bought a couple of Axial's and then a Gmade sawback, that was my first kit and after that I was hooked. My first Tamiya was a CC-01 Landfreeder and since then I've been hooked with Buggies, Monster trucks, 4wd crawlers and rally cars and have been ordering at a steady pace of 3-4 kits per month. I'm even looking to do a few custom builds with hard bodies I've gotten on ebay (Blackfoot body, soon to be a scaler) and even a Tonka Winnebago for a future build.