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Nobbi1977

Comical pricing

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I do not need another car. I have no space fo another car. I have other cars still to build finish. But I quite like the Comical range.

Why the huge price difference between them all £110 for a Grasshopper, £150 for a Frog and £175 for an Avante. Is there some hidden difference for the extra money?

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7 minutes ago, Superluminal said:

The avante is 4wd

That makes more sense. I have not followed any new release for about 2 years

Tempted to order one just in case we are still locked down

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The Comical Grasshopper and Hornet were the first two releases, and you see some good discounts on them. The Frog was the last release so you're less likely to get a big discount. The Avante isn't out in the UK yet, and as mentioned it's 4WD. Though if you shop around you'll find better prices than £175!!

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7 minutes ago, IBIFTKH said:

The Comical Grasshopper and Hornet were the first two releases, and you see some good discounts on them. The Frog was the last release so you're less likely to get a big discount. The Avante isn't out in the UK yet, and as mentioned it's 4WD. Though if you shop around you'll find better prices than £175!!

I just have and I may have one on order...... ******

 

Need to look in to oils shocks now, I cannot run the pogo sticks 

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Good man! :) 

(They come with CVA shocks, not pogo sticks.)

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13 minutes ago, IBIFTKH said:

Good man! :) 

(They come with CVA shocks, not pogo sticks.)

You’re are making my day. I will put away my blister 50519 and save them for another project. 
 

Anything else I need to order? Guessing shock towers will not fit like the bigger WRs

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There is nothing else you'll really 'need', although there are plenty of option parts. I've just built a Grasshopper up. It's a great kit to build and really fun to drive:

 

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17 minutes ago, Nobbi1977 said:

You’re are making my day. I will put away my blister 50519 and save them for another project. 
 

Anything else I need to order? Guessing shock towers will not fit like the bigger WRs

Shock towers won't fit at the front, no clearance under the body. Ok at the rear though.

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1 hour ago, Nobbi1977 said:

I do not need another car. I have no space fo another car. 

But you know you want one...

Don't try overthinking this. Just give in now...it will save time later.

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1 hour ago, Nobbi1977 said:

I do not need another car. I have no space for another car

It's only tiny. It'll squeeze in somewhere.

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Got all three of mine for £270 a couple of weeks ago. £85 each for the Hopper & Hornet from Jadlam and £100 for the Frog from Time Tunnel.

 

IMG_1588.JPG

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9 minutes ago, Wandy said:

Got all three of mine for £270 a couple of weeks ago. £85 each for the Hopper & Hornet from Jadlam and £100 for the Frog from Time Tunnel.

 

IMG_1588.JPG

Might grab a Grasshopper if this lock down lasts much longer 🤣

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Just now, Nobbi1977 said:

Might grab a Grasshopper if this lock down lasts much longer 🤣

Best be quick, just noticed that Jadlam have bumped the price of the Hornet back up. :mellow:

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3 minutes ago, Superluminal said:

Might as well get all three

That's what the voices in my head said too...

DSCF1696.JPG

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I've never made sense of any Tamiya pricing. DF-03 kits way outperform grasshopper/frog platforms but those cost way less. I get they are gouging for the nostalgia factor but still doesn't make a ton of sense.  Why is the sand viper $50 more than the holiday buggy?  Same car, different body a far as I can tell.  Why is a Frog almost $200?  Crazy.

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8 hours ago, A-Baum said:

I've never made sense of any Tamiya pricing. DF-03 kits way outperform grasshopper/frog platforms but those cost way less. I get they are gouging for the nostalgia factor but still doesn't make a ton of sense.  Why is the sand viper $50 more than the holiday buggy?  Same car, different body a far as I can tell.  Why is a Frog almost $200?  Crazy.

Some places have the Grasshopper Comical at £150 and one at £85

I guess some places are trying for profit and others are trying to liquidate stock. It will be interesting times in the next few months 

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8 hours ago, A-Baum said:

I've never made sense of any Tamiya pricing. DF-03 kits way outperform grasshopper/frog platforms but those cost way less. I get they are gouging for the nostalgia factor but still doesn't make a ton of sense.  Why is the sand viper $50 more than the holiday buggy?  Same car, different body a far as I can tell.  Why is a Frog almost $200?  Crazy.

I think you are being hard on Tamiya. The Comicals are new and will have recent tooling investment to recover. Whilst they might not be high performance, the tooling for new arms (thr comicals have unique track width amongst the WR series), wheels, tyres and detailed bodies will cost just as much if not more than anything high performance. The DF03 is 15 years old and i would be very surprised if there has been a production run for ages because its not a popular model. Anything in stock will have been from a while ago which means retailers will be reducing margins to tutn the stock, and also it will have been purchased at a more favourable exchange rate. Currency fluctuations have been insane these last three or four years, and most everything has devalued. 

Having got a Comical Hornet myself (pre-price slashes for £125) i felt it was a good value kit based on some of the cheap outs tamiya could have easily done under the guise of it being Comical and therefore not high performance. It's got proper cva shocks instead of pogo sticks, steel driveshafts and diff outdrives instead of the awful fat plastic things that came on my DT03, and a really detailed driver figure. 

Same goes for the Sand Viper - that has a 540 motor, cva shocks, racing wheels and the steel driveshafts, plus a couple of other higher perfomance bits i can't remember. 

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I think the comical range seems to be well priced.

I have two on order now that I don’t have space for but I am very lucky in the current situation and think buying a couple of things from UK suppliers is the right thing to do. My wife may not agree when the arrive.

 

 

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Pricing in general has gone a bit mad lately. I have been closely watching Model sport stock and prices in case I need to stock up on nibs for lock down builds. A couple of months ago I bought a super Astute for 190 on a price match deal, a month ago it was up to 219 and now it is 249. A friend in the trade says demand is high while people are locked down but its getting harder to get stock in. Forget panic buying toilet rolls, panic buy tamiya! 

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6 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

I think you are being hard on Tamiya. The Comicals are new and will have recent tooling investment to recover. Whilst they might not be high performance, the tooling for new arms (thr comicals have unique track width amongst the WR series), wheels, tyres and detailed bodies will cost just as much if not more than anything high performance. The DF03 is 15 years old and i would be very surprised if there has been a production run for ages because its not a popular model. Anything in stock will have been from a while ago which means retailers will be reducing margins to tutn the stock, and also it will have been purchased at a more favourable exchange rate. Currency fluctuations have been insane these last three or four years, and most everything has devalued. 

Having got a Comical Hornet myself (pre-price slashes for £125) i felt it was a good value kit based on some of the cheap outs tamiya could have easily done under the guise of it being Comical and therefore not high performance. It's got proper cva shocks instead of pogo sticks, steel driveshafts and diff outdrives instead of the awful fat plastic things that came on my DT03, and a really detailed driver figure. 

Same goes for the Sand Viper - that has a 540 motor, cva shocks, racing wheels and the steel driveshafts, plus a couple of other higher perfomance bits i can't remember. 

Had no idea the DF-03 was that old and/or that thay may not have produced any for a while.  Is the DF-03 phasing out, meaning once all the stock is eventually sold that's it?  Would love to get more insight into how that stuff works.  Especially the international aspect of it.  I do have a MB backordered through Tamiya (couldn't bring myself to order the black edition) so yeah demand is up.  Many parts are backordered until May.  We are all bored and trying to fill the time I guess.

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1 hour ago, A-Baum said:

Had no idea the DF-03 was that old and/or that thay may not have produced any for a while.  Is the DF-03 phasing out, meaning once all the stock is eventually sold that's it?  Would love to get more insight into how that stuff works.  Especially the international aspect of it.  I do have a MB backordered through Tamiya (couldn't bring myself to order the black edition) so yeah demand is up.  Many parts are backordered until May.  We are all bored and trying to fill the time I guess.

Yeah, the DF03 has quite a few developmental dead ends due to it's age (0.5 mod gearing which NO ONE uses, ball diffs only when everyone's on oil filled gear diffs now to name but two), and although it's got a lot of nice features out of the box (turnbuckles, proper metal driveshafts etc) it's been pretty much superseded by the TT02B on the 4WD buggy side of things, these being lower spec but much cheaper. Feels like we're due a new 4wd buggy platform, but I'm not holding my breath. 

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9 hours ago, Nobbi1977 said:

I think the comical range seems to be well priced.

I have two on order now that I don’t have space for but I am very lucky in the current situation and think buying a couple of things from UK suppliers is the right thing to do. My wife may not agree when the arrive.

 

 

They were great value, especially when they were £85 a pop delivered @ Jadlam.

But seemingly now sold out or less stock so the prices are much higher again. 

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9 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

Pricing in general has gone a bit mad lately. I have been closely watching Model sport stock and prices in case I need to stock up on nibs for lock down builds. A couple of months ago I bought a super Astute for 190 on a price match deal, a month ago it was up to 219 and now it is 249. A friend in the trade says demand is high while people are locked down but its getting harder to get stock in. Forget panic buying toilet rolls, panic buy tamiya! 

The prices have been rising steadily over the last 4 weeks, even a modest Lunch Box 20% higher.

And even all the old stock of the Kyosho Beetles from 2014 have now eventually sold 🙈

I’ll bought a lock down project and a NIB, but I’ll try and finish some of the other projects before I don’t finish these ones 😂

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