Vintage Bullhead vs ReRe

[max69vk]

Are there any ways to distinguish them apart? Unlike the Clodbuster where you can look at the body or even colour of some parts to date them, I. Any seem to find anyway of separating the vintage vs the rere. 

Am I missing something?! 🤔

[TWINSET]

The re-re won't have a mechanical speed control, not sure about the power/economy switch
Other than that, I can't think of any differences - the original already had the steel plates for the suspension links to attach thru, which was an upgrade over the original Clod setup

[max69vk]

32 minutes ago, TWINSET said:

The re-re won't have a mechanical speed control, not sure about the power/economy switch
Other than that, I can't think of any differences - the original already had the steel plates for the suspension links to attach thru, which was an upgrade over the original Clod setup

Cool, thanks for that. I won't feel so guilty about ripping it apart to try and do something with it now! 😁

[Hibernaculum]

I've never analyzed the Bullhead (I don't own it), but if other remakes are any indication... there are almost certain to be many differences. Embossed stamps on parts may be different, gears may be different plastic, re-re motor may be slightly different to the original kit, and many more...

I am just speculating. Maybe there are literally no differences with the Bullhead.

But if you are a collector and really want the original through and through... and you go looking carefully... there are usually a ton of differences - many small, some large. I give The Frog as the only example I have had the time to finish analyzing properly so far - https://rctoymemories.com/the-frog-by-tamiya-vintage-vs-remake/

But I hope to get back to this task soon and complete the Hotshot as well. Followed by some other models that have been remade.

H.

 

[mongoose1983]

7 hours ago, Hibernaculum said:

re-re motor may be slightly different to the original kit

Definitely! That's actually the easiest way to identify the re-re Bullhead from the original.

The fact that the original model was released with fake sponsors make things complicated, because the new one has the same decals.

But the motor, YES the new ones doesn't have the classic white or black endbells...

[Saito2]

You do lose the old power/economy switch with the re-re's included ESC.

[max69vk]

All good information here so far.

The reason I ask about the differences is that I am always loathed to pull apart or modify a vintage model, preferring to restore instead. Now with the Bullhead I can't see anything that makes it different from the re-release in terms of being unique to that release, so in theory I could take a re-re throw in an MSC & vintage motors etc & there would be no way to say it wasn't a vintage model...

Something that I think must be pretty unique for Tamiya as there's usually always differences somewhere.

 

 

 

[mongoose1983]

8 hours ago, max69vk said:

All good information here so far.

The reason I ask about the differences is that I am always loathed to pull apart or modify a vintage model, preferring to restore instead. Now with the Bullhead I can't see anything that makes it different from the re-release in terms of being unique to that release, so in theory I could take a re-re throw in an MSC & vintage motors etc & there would be no way to say it wasn't a vintage model...

Something that I think must be pretty unique for Tamiya as there's usually always differences somewhere.

Unfortunately, I don't have a Bullhead in my collection. But judging from pictures, the new one I believe it's pretty much like with the Grasshopper. Everything seems to be the same, except for the motor endbell. And since the orig Bullhead did not have real sponsors Tamiya is making the same fake ones from back in the 90's. Still, if you check the new Grasshopper parts I can see different numbers as @Hibernaculum mentioned before. With the Bullhead probably happens the same.

[Hibernaculum]

7 hours ago, max69vk said:

in theory I could take a re-re throw in an MSC & vintage motors etc & there would be no way to say it wasn't a vintage model...

I can only speak for myself as a collector. But if I specifically wanted to buy a vintage Bullhead, I would pass on the Bullhead you described above. Because I'd find out one way or another that the model was the remake, not the vintage.

Three additional babbles from me...

• There are a lot of small differences between every original kit, and every remake kit. This is why Tamiya did not simply reprint each original kit with the exact same kit number and box. Instead, they revised each kit with many changed molds, parts, materials, supplier chains (e.g. motors), licenses (decals), and so on, and then released it with a new model number - thus representing a new model entry in their product history. Tamiya did this as an acknowledgement to the buyer that too many things had changed in the kit for it to be considered exactly the same as the original release.
• Even in those instances where the difference between an original part and a remake part is nothing more than the embossed writing on the part or part sprue... many collectors enjoy the fun of simply knowing a part came from the original manufacturing run of the kit in the 1980s, because this era is looked back upon fondly (childhood for most of us). And in this regard, the vintage R/C hobby can at times be similar to collectors of first edition books. Those people like owning famous books which were part of the first print run of the book (as indicated by just a few lines of text on the first page)
• Thirdly, the values of all vintage Tamiyas (and all vintage R/C cars of all brands) start with NIB examples at the highest price point, with everything else beneath that. And the NIB value difference between vintage vs remake, is as follows (without exception to my knowledge): the vintage kit is always worth somewhere between 2 and 5 times as much as the remake kit (depending on the model). It follows that this price trend also trickles down to used examples. And a serious collector who sees a nice 100% vintage Bullhead, will likely pay more for it than a similar remake Bullhead.

It's of course ok if some people don't see any difference, and don't see a reason not to pay the same for both.

But we are all just individual fish in the sea.... and when it comes to buying or selling, the value that others place on things matters more than us. Things are only worth "what people are prepared to pay" - and "prepared" varies greatly between the serious collector of genuine vintage, and the casual owner.

These days I even see lots of videos on Youtube in which collectors are very careful to point out which cars they own are vintage, and which are remakes - right down to the parts used, in restoration cases. I only mention this, to support the notion that there is a lot of awareness out there of what's what, generally speaking.