Comical pricing

[moffman]

Modelsport has the comical series for £99 including speed controller £85 without! I nearly pressed buy but TBH I don't really have the space and although that's a good price I can't justify getting another kit.......just yet!

[Saito2]

4 hours 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'm with you. It would be interesting to know how and why Tamiya prices their products. The Top Force vs Super Astute pricing was one that interested me for instance.  The lack of DF03 interest is an interesting study. When it came out there was much fanfare. Considering we went from the somewhat competitive for its era DF01 to the more basic, touring car derived DF02, the DF03 actually looked like quite a step forward. Twin balls diffs standard were seen as a beneficial selling point back then. The buggy was all-new and had slim chassis design. Tamiya made quite a lot of hop ups for it. Still, there were flaws that held it back. Its wheelbase was still on the short side. It was cursed with another alloy gear in the drivetrain causing wear issues for some. The rear ball diff had issues. There were odd things like too-long hinge pins and drilling required for certain suspension set-screws. It had a lot of ABS/PC material in it for a buggy aimed at mid level competition. I always theorized that the DB01 which followed it stole much of the DF03's thunder too. The DB01 was very good in both materials and design and I think this siphoned some of the DF03'S sales numbers. After all, if you had any notion to race, wouldn't you spend a bit more money for a far superior buggy? Its not that the DF03 was completely terrible, just that the DB01 was so good. If you read the two reviews over at Oople.com on the DF03 Keen Hawk and the DB01 Durga, you'll get the idea. DF03's just kind of dried up except for the white edition Dark Impact (anyone else find a white Dark Impact ironic?). Too bad really as I think Tamiya regressed when they went to the TT02B. It fills a need, but isn't quite as interesting (nor effective off road) as the DF03.

[wolfdogstinkus]

21 hours ago, A-Baum said:

I've never made sense of any Tamiya pricing.  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 the kit sand viper has oil shocks and metal drive shafts, where as the holiday buggy has pogo sticks and plastic dogbones. 

Can't help on others.

[Mad Ax]

14 hours ago, Saito2 said:

I'm with you. It would be interesting to know how and why Tamiya prices their products. The Top Force vs Super Astute pricing was one that interested me for instance.  The lack of DF03 interest is an interesting study. When it came out there was much fanfare. Considering we went from the somewhat competitive for its era DF01 to the more basic, touring car derived DF02, the DF03 actually looked like quite a step forward. Twin balls diffs standard were seen as a beneficial selling point back then. The buggy was all-new and had slim chassis design. Tamiya made quite a lot of hop ups for it. Still, there were flaws that held it back. Its wheelbase was still on the short side. It was cursed with another alloy gear in the drivetrain causing wear issues for some. The rear ball diff had issues. There were odd things like too-long hinge pins and drilling required for certain suspension set-screws. It had a lot of ABS/PC material in it for a buggy aimed at mid level competition. I always theorized that the DB01 which followed it stole much of the DF03's thunder too. The DB01 was very good in both materials and design and I think this siphoned some of the DF03'S sales numbers. After all, if you had any notion to race, wouldn't you spend a bit more money for a far superior buggy? Its not that the DF03 was completely terrible, just that the DB01 was so good. If you read the two reviews over at Oople.com on the DF03 Keen Hawk and the DB01 Durga, you'll get the idea. DF03's just kind of dried up except for the white edition Dark Impact (anyone else find a white Dark Impact ironic?). Too bad really as I think Tamiya regressed when they went to the TT02B. It fills a need, but isn't quite as interesting (nor effective off road) as the DF03.

Interesting topic (even if we are going away from the original topic a little).  I bought a Dark Impact as my return to the hobby and was so impressed - it was way better than any of the Tamiyas I had in my childhood.  It even had full bearings included.  Also, and unlike many Tamiyas, most of its flaws could be rectified with Tamiya hop-ups.  For earlier flawed cars we had to rely on the aftermarket, make our own solutions or just live with it.  Tamiya released a few buggies on the platform and even a rally edition, which I was desperate to buy until it appeared all Tamiya hop-ups were discontinued.  What was the point in buying a flawed car if the parts to fix the flaws were no longer out there?

Agreed the DB01 probably killed it off, but one does wonder why Tamiya would release two models that compete so closely together.  Their product range sometimes looks a little like British Leyland in its worst days, with half a dozen different marques competing with each other for sales and resources but all owned by the same parent.

Dropping the DF03 in favour of the simpler TT02B makes sense if they kept the DB line-up going, but as far as I can tell the DB02 fell flat and the range has silently disappeared.  I sometimes wonder if the recent re-releases actually offer more performance potential than the current 4wd buggy line-up 

[mike in pa]

I picked up a comical frog back in early January and it was an interesting build and a fun buggy. I am actually working on cutting up the body for painting as we speak. For pricing it was $150 (us) I don't know what that comes out to in Quid for you guys on the other side of the puddle. I actually only paid $90 with free shipping from amazon because  they gave me $60 off for opening a CC account. So for me that made it even easier to buy it. I did throw in a ball bearing kit as I do with all my builds.

I did check Quid to bucks: 109 Quid, 65 after discount.    

[DayRider]

WLtoys look better everyday for the price and it's seem like you get more bang for your money. I'm sorry to say but they might price them self's out of the market.

[lentner3]

13 minutes ago, DayRider said:

WLtoys look better everyday for the price and it's seem like you get more bang for your money. I'm sorry to say but they might price them self's out of the market.

If they start offering kits also, they would be on to a winner.

[mike in pa]

I poked around on youtube and found videos of those WLtoys and although they are priced right and run good, they do fall apart and break easily.

[Problemchild]

I’ve been running my wiltoys 144001 for a few days now 

it’s great fun 

cost me £97 woth 3 x 2s LiPo

the 550 motor in the small 1/14 scale car makes it fun and it does 20mph easy (not the 60kph it says on the box)

i also bought the bling pack of red anodised metal parts which I will use as spares. Tbh thoigh it’s already making creaky diff noises (and yes I stripped it down and greased the diffs)

I also put a phat bodies shell on it 

mit bling 1.0...

 

however, building my comical hornet when that came out was amazing fun and last week I lowered and widened it using baja champ lower arms, longer drive shafts and steering arms and gave it a new shell in Jun Watanabe colours - Tamiya is better for this very reason 

 

When Tamiya have finished fleecing us nostalgic middle aged men, it will change its business model but while we are still around then long live driving crap RC car’s on nimh haha

JJ