RC10Talk - The Net's Largest Vintage R/C Community

trkneller wrote:Well, in the back of my mind, I keep thinking of what Farmer reported from RCX last year:

"So before I get started, let me recap yes as stated on my other post Lett just told me about a RC10 remake ,so without any further adue let me tell you what he said. When he said remake I looked him straight in the face and said no way you kidding, he said nope, I said I thought all the molds and tooling were gone and he said nope. We have over half of the original tooling and that they were going through them to find out what was still cost effective and useable compared to today’s technology, with CNC machines and injection molding and what not! and explained that the old parts where machined and hand trimmed and finished and were clunky and didn’t fit the best and that they are trying to get that same type of fill for the kit and parts, with the modern day fabrication process, like square sanded corners, rough shock towers etc, etc than he said that they were also working on a way that every new part would have a irreversible marking that would make it unique to the reissue kit. What did I just hear did I really just hear this rite from Mr. VP Cliff Letts mouth, yes I did! "
http://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=26724&p=271076&hilit=farmer+cliff+lett+rc10#p271076

Here's to hoping!!

Well that story certainly sounds very promising indeed.

I bought the latest issue today just for this ad.

After looking through this thing, I now know why I haven't bought an issue since the early 2000's.

Nice

LTO_Dave wrote:I bought the latest issue today just for this ad.

After looking through this thing, I now know why I haven't bought an issue since the early 2000's.

i know what you mean. it was cooler back in the day when you had crazy readers rides with $1000+ blackfoots and the adds in the mags had stuff like rc batmobiles and pull trucks for sale. i dont blame the mag ,im very happy we still have 2 rc mags. the problem is almost every page needs to make x amount of $$ or they cant print it. everything was in the mags before the www. thats why mags were so good.

longboardnj wrote:

LTO_Dave wrote:I bought the latest issue today just for this ad.

After looking through this thing, I now know why I haven't bought an issue since the early 2000's.

i know what you mean. it was cooler back in the day when you had crazy readers rides with $1000+ blackfoots and the adds in the mags had stuff like rc batmobiles and pull trucks for sale. i dont blame the mag ,im very happy we still have 2 rc mags. the problem is almost every page needs to make x amount of $$ or they cant print it. everything was in the mags before the www. thats why mags were so good.

RCCA started to go bad during the monster truck craze of the early 2000's. I'd say it was at its best in the mid to late 1990s.

im still so happy I managed to grab the entire archive....ive seen the new issues...basically 43 pages of Traxxas ads :/

proffesso wrote:im still so happy I managed to grab the entire archive....ive seen the new issues...basically 43 pages of Traxxas ads :/

Speaking of which, a guy at my work told me he wanted to buy one of those XO-1's. I was actually surprised to find out that not one, but TWO people in my city are trying to sell theirs. I figure it's such a rare commodity that few people would buy one, but Edmonton is an oil-town and there are lots of people with more money than sense. I can imagine the reason they're selling is because there's just no damn place to DRIVE an RC car that can reach 100 mph. You need a full-size track to drive ANY scale of vehicle at those speeds because that's pretty much a 1:1 speed.

proffesso wrote:im still so happy I managed to grab the entire archive....ive seen the new issues...basically 43 pages of Traxxas ads :/

oh man i dont know about you but it was diving me nuts with the traxxas same car different body shoot outs. its like how many times can they do that. they did slash/salshvxl/slashraptor/new desert slash,they even did brushed slash with new body and vxl motor/esc. im sure i missed a few too. the review they didnt do was the one on how traxxas downgraded the new slash with a tq radio instead of the tqi radio that came with the older brushed slash (the slash with the racer bodies came with tqi radios).

Just to rehash the RC10 v Hotshot sales numbers, I don't really think that you can only compare sales against the Hotshot, when Tamiya had so many models available, compared to AE. The Fox sold 100,000+ in Australia alone.

mtbkym01 wrote:Just to rehash the RC10 v Hotshot sales numbers, I don't really think that you can only compare sales against the Hotshot, when Tamiya had so many models available, compared to AE. The Fox sold 100,000+ in Australia alone.

True...my point was that the RC10 was a fantastic race car sold to RC race enthusiasts, which is a comparably small niche market compared to the market most Tamiya cars were sold to. For every guy who was serious about racing, there were probably at least TEN guys who just wanted to bash around the park.

Exactly.

Also I'd guess 90% of newbies to the rc hobby would have bought a Tamiya as they were cheap, simple and recommended by most hobby shops as a starter package. So Tamiya pretty much had the entire first time buyers market to themselves (in the 1980s anyway).

Then most second time buyers would have moved onto more serious, better made brands for their next purchase, such as Kyosho etc. By the time most were into their third machines they would likely be into serious race buggies. So second or third purchases would be divided into many more alternative companies. Thus it was natural Tamiya would sell many more products than the racing companies.

The better and more expensive something is, the more niche the market is for them. That is why more Ford Fiestas are sold than Pagani Zondas.

mtbkym01 wrote:Just to rehash the RC10 v Hotshot sales numbers, I don't really think that you can only compare sales against the Hotshot, when Tamiya had so many models available, compared to AE. The Fox sold 100,000+ in Australia alone.

ae sold a bunch of cars and tamiya sold a ton of cars. in the numbers war i dont think it matters . i havent heard of a hotshottalk.com or foxtalk.com . rc10s rule
the real problem back in the day was the first 6 gear rc10s were a pain in the butt to build compared to tamiya. for anyone that was not racing id say it was a no brainer. i think it was like $120 for a esc and the ae wiper arm was a pain. tamiya was good to go just buy a kit and radio. the 6 gear trans also had a lot of "gray area" in the build. gray area like, how do i file the gears?how much do i file? how tight do i make the mesh? should i run bearings now before i press this on? do i need an adapter for bearings? how do i press this? how do i unpress this to put bearings in? and a few more things i cant think of now. tamiya was just black and white. just read, follow steps and the kit was good to go

AE didn't just make one RC10, just as Tamiya didn't just make the Hot Shot. There's this little forum you might know of, tamiyaclub.com, with nearly 39,000 members and almost 300 currently logged in...compared with here, 3656 total membership, 33 currently logged in, and 208 members was the most EVER logged in at one time. That should pretty much sum things up.

It turns out my 10 to 1 ratio was actually pretty accurate, if forum numbers are any indication. That said, quality always trumps quantity. I'm not a Tamiya fan-boy, that's for certain.

longboardnj wrote:

mtbkym01 wrote:Just to rehash the RC10 v Hotshot sales numbers, I don't really think that you can only compare sales against the Hotshot, when Tamiya had so many models available, compared to AE. The Fox sold 100,000+ in Australia alone.

ae sold a bunch of cars and tamiya sold a ton of cars. in the numbers war i dont think it matters . i havent heard of a hotshottalk.com or foxtalk.com . rc10s rule
the real problem back in the day was the first 6 gear rc10s were a pain in the butt to build compared to tamiya. for anyone that was not racing id say it was a no brainer. i think it was like $120 for a esc and the ae wiper arm was a pain. tamiya was good to go just buy a kit and radio. the 6 gear trans also had a lot of "gray area" in the build. gray area like, how do i file the gears?how much do i file? how tight do i make the mesh? should i run bearings now before i press this on? do i need an adapter for bearings? how do i press this? how do i unpress this to put bearings in? and a few more things i cant think of now. tamiya was just black and white. just read, follow steps and the kit was good to go

and now that isn't even good enough for newbies. traxxas' 60mph rtr's are the new tamiya.

kaiser wrote:and now that isn't even good enough for newbies. traxxas' 60mph rtr's are the new tamiya.

+1 on that. When I got pulled back into RC when deciding to restore my Optima a few years ago, I made a few trips to the hobby stores and was dismayed to see all these new RC cars that looked just like the plastastic Tamiyas back in the 80's. Where did all the aluminum go? Well, it was still out there, but unlike the 80's, it wasn't in the hobby store kits for the most part.