I drive to meetings in a £200 car, with over £1500 worth of rc in the boot. The difference is one of them isn't being raced in a competition. The buggy cost doesn't really matter to me. The gear inside cost a lot more.

There not more expensive there much cheaper than they use to be 20 years ago (take the Schumacher CAT £249 for a 2000 in 1995 it now £300 for the CAT K1 Aero inflation accounts for more than that). I don't think £50-70 on a kit between middle end stuff and the latest and greatest makes any difference. Middle of the range still exist either as end of life high end models from the main manufactuers or the raft of Chinese partial copies

It all cheaper than 20 years ago
+ four high end NiMH to be competitive as a minimum when I last raced as apposed to 2 medium lipos
+ 27/40 Mhz transmitter and dont forget the 5 sets of crystals as apposed to a 2.4Ghz set
etc.

As many others have said, I don't think they've got more expensive at all. What has happened though is that prices have got extremely variable.

Lets take Durango - When they first brought the DEX410 out it was the most expensive car on the market at £400 or thereabouts. Today you can pick up a V4 for £270, and the 410R v3 cost £180 when they stopped selling it. One basic design but wildly different costs.
Of course the first cars had a lot more machined alloy and a lot less polymer parts but overall reliability, strength and performance has improved. Durango realised you could make essentially the same car for a lot less.

It cost them as many customers as it made.

You can make a competitive buggy for very little, but even an 'expensive' buggy isn't. Compared to so many other hobbies £300-400 is not a big deal. You can get a 210V2 for £160, or an RB6 for twice that. Most club racers won't really notice the difference (if they claim to its normally that they just a a better setup for the preferred one) but lets be honest who really wants the 'budget' Durango when the 'luxury' Kyosho is still affordable?

And thats the point. Companies sell £300+ cars because people buy £300+ cars. Willingly. A more expensive car has to be better, it just has to be, so we have to have the best we can afford.

My first 27mhz acoms tx cost me 39.99 back in 198*cough*
Look online for an acoms tx and its roughly the same price.
So it's not all doom and gloom :D

tell me about it, that would have been about enough to keep me in consumables (at RRP) for a month's racing on my MTB.
If I'd broken anything significant, you could probably double it. New frame (£1000 minimum), forks (£5-600), wheels (£500)....... Not to mention having to have at least three sets of tyres, two mounted up. In case the course conditions changed.

And prices have gone mental since I packed in. 10 years ago.

24 years ago, for a top line 4wd buggy you would have paid:- £230 for a kyosho lazer ZX-R or £275 for a yokomo works 91.
considering today you would pay for a similar spec 4wd :- b44.3 - £299 , k1 aero - £294 , or a losi 22.4 - £224 prices are not that expensive.

Another way to keep costs down is to be focused when putting in an order with the hobby shops.

A lot of them offer free shipping if you spend a certain amount so it's worth shopping around to find one with live stock levels, so you can ascertain whether they've got everything you need in one order.

Too many people think small, you need to think big. If you're up to say £35 with an order you might as well get another 2 pairs of tyres at £8 each to get the "free shipping when you spend £50" deal rather than wasting a fiver on delivery, after all you'll use them eventually.

I have an A4 pad "the ledger" in which I write down all money that comes into my account and all that goes out with dates, and I check my balance every few days. This way even before transactions have cleared I know how much I can spend without going overdrawn.

Leading on from this I make liberal use of my credit card to buy stuff I won't have the cash for for a couple of weeks, but I make sure using it never costs me a penny by paying the balance in full within 28 days. This way you can take advantage of special offers that might no longer be there when you get paid.

Hope this helps, all of the above is the only way I can afford to race competitively.

buggys have never been cheaper than they are now, and racing is so much cheaper in terms of motors and cells.

A £200 procat in 1989 is like the K1 aero costing £800 now. BARGAIN DAYS.

TBH, if I had to go to that level of penny pinching and detailed financial planning, I'd not have started up again. As when it comes right down to it, it's still just playing with toy cars. Unless you are right at the pointy end, nationally (or internationally), it's not worth it.

It's the only reason i "spent" that much on bikes, the level i was at and the deals I could get (free stuff, or very nearly) meant that prize money plus a small input from wages could keep me racing at a high level........ Until my sponsor pulled the plug on the team. Oops.

Racing is fun, some take it more seriously than others. I'm only ever racing for fun, not because i can't do well, i choose not to be bothered.

If that's your opinion that's fine, I was just trying to show the OP that you can make your money go a long way if you think before throwing your wad on the counter.

Also I forgot to mention, I gave up my TV Licence recently which is saving me another 150 quid a year, plus I no longer have to sit through hours of "celebrity cretins" twaddle and left-wing propaganda interrupted by 10-minute ad breaks.

Even if my financial situation were better i'd still be like this just because i'd rather that money was in my pocket than someone else's. Most successful business people are pretty tightfisted and get their staff to re-use jiffy bags etc.

It's not just Budgies, African greys cost a fortune. :o

I'm sure the Yokomo Super Dog Fighter 870C was about £200 in the late 80's, so I think they've probably come down in price.

You can get some real bargains 2nd hand that have barely been used.

In 1989 I paid, Schumacher Top Cat 2wd cost 74.99. A Pro-Cat 4wd cost 174.99 I think they have gone up a little......

Ahhh BUT......

back then 2wd meetings were like 95% Top Cats/ Cougars. Racing in Essex back then there were 2 RC10s and a single JRX. Why? Because the Cougar was £90, the American cars £180+.
That compares well to the Durango vs Kyosho prces today.

So like I said, they have gone up a little. Top-Cat 74.99 in 1989. 2014 kf 235 and maybe the KF will hit 300 in 2015. So I think thats gone up a little.:D

a little
 

well to put in my 2p ns worth ... like others have said on this thread its definitely cheaper now.... at least based on a like for like basis......

... based on the 90's prices..
Schumacher's top of line buggy 4wd:

:thumbsup:Schumacher cat2000 ( i think i bought it mid 90's ish, was when ever it first came out, Seymore models in Harrow ) £279.00

:thumbsup:Cat aero ( best kit price i could find now on a quick look ) £294.00

so very little difference from what i can see..... and thats not taking into consideration 20yrs of inflation ....cant do the sums on that but id bet comparatively it makes things cheaper even more so...........also the aero has Carbon fibre everywhere... so your getting more for your money! :woot:

ah
 

having said that ....perhaps i over payed on the cat2000! :woot:

you could in the 90's choose your spec of car schumacher did the carbon fibre or the s1 associated did three levels rtr ,team and factory team yokomo had the full works dog fighter or the plastic chassis buggy team c even managed it with the super cheap buggy or the better spec racing buggy the number of manufacturers may have gone up but they are either aimed at novices or pro drivers i am at best average i am faced with buying a top spec buggy probably going to have to buy some shorty batteries as saddle packs are out of favour my stick packs are so last week and with the price limit seemingly removed on the motors its a hobby for deep pockets

It seems to me you just want a moan. Fair enough it's your prerogative but you are not listening to the replies. The hobby is not more expensive, it is cheaper. Most makers have cheap and pro versions of their buggies, Yeah, shorties are flavour de jour but you can still use saddles and sticks in many cars a Durango 210 can use all 3 and is probably the cheapest route to a competitive mid range race car.

price limit
 

well ...what i found last year when i started again after 20rs of absence was i bought a second hand buggy ( looked out for a club members car while visiting and checked it in person ) ...bought cheap shorties ( £20 each ) from hobbyking ( fine for club racing but not for brca meetings ( didnt know at the time ) ), second hand motor and speedo from oople members....
bought tyres ...shock oils ...paint, spares ,bodyshells from my local shop DMS ... converted my old sanwa gemini 90s radio to 2.4ghz for about £40 inc receiver ....
its never going to be super cheap to start afresh if you want to avoid an RTR set up and tailor make your own kit.... but once your going its manageable

I think the OP wants a yokomo yz2. It did hurt a little spending nigh on £500 on release day (needed shorties) but its honestly worth it.

You can get other new buggies that are compettitive very cheap. Think MB have durango 210 up for under £160!

Not really, that Cougar in 1989 would cost around £220 today, and that was stamped aluminium and moulded plastic, not carbon fibre and machined alloy.

calculator
 

in case anyones interested you can get a good idea of comparative cost according to the bank of England's calculator here:

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/educa...h/default.aspx

sorry .... had to look it up .... was bugging me wanting to know after reaing this thread what things actually cost relative to inflation after 20 yrs or so :p

can of coke 15p, now around 60p.... my procat was £200 from morley models in 89. houses have gone up more than coke has! toy cars are cheap.

OK I found this RCP catalogue from Winter 1991 and have photographed it to show prices then.

http://courgette.jml.net/~neal/RC/RCP01t.jpg
http://courgette.jml.net/~neal/RC/RCP02t.jpg
http://courgette.jml.net/~neal/RC/RCP03t.jpg
http://courgette.jml.net/~neal/RC/RCP04t.jpg
http://courgette.jml.net/~neal/RC/RCP05t.jpg

Click each picture to be taken to a larger version.

Must have been so expensive back then. No wonder my parents never let me take it up.

lunch box
 

oooooh a vanessas lunch box in 1991 £72..... according to bank of England in 2013 your looking at a comparative cost of £134.00

great find neal :thumbsup:

Ta.

Back in the day for a days racing you needed 5/6 packs of Nicads per car, use once per meeting, at ~£40 per pack, Plus a couple of chargers.
Now = £74.93 per pack!

Motors, a decent modified, ~£45, you had a handful, even before the silly comm truing days. Now £84.30 each

Yokomo Dogfighter works 91: £275 - now £515.17
Scumacher Cougar 2: £179.50 - now £336.26
RC10 team car: £199 - now £372.79

Schumacher Rear tyres: £6.43 - Now £12.04

The other thing that people forget is that the Cougar was £90 without ballraces. It really cost £105 when you added them too.
Mardaves were cheaper still - but both cars were very basic. Part of the reason they cost so little was there really wasn't much to them.


Perhaps the most interesting price to look at is the RC10. £200 for a Team car in 1991, and £225 for the Worlds car today. Since they are both essentially the same car with minor changes, and the effort required in production is the same that means that the cost of an alloy tub RC10 has increased by the rate of around £1 per year for the last 25 years. Thats 0.5% inflation!
Oh and the Worlds car actually costs MORE than the B5m......

RCP catalogue brings back memories, sitting in the back of science lessons reading though them:lol:

Maybe the title of this thread should be: 'How has RC got so cheap?'

So inflation has gone up 87% since that catalogue was published - I can't of any 'equivalent spec' RC gear has gone up that much.

I remember my local model shop owner used to drive a new Sierra Cosworth back in the early 90s. I get the impression they'd be lucky to afford a Kia Picanto now!

so maybe RC just feels costly as everything has gone up by so much around it in the last 20 years and its harder to warrant the extra spend.

Ive been out of the hobby for a decade or so and was amazed that prices seem to be comparable with what they were back then, heck my old xx was £220 when I got that and the xxx was nearer 300. The thing that has changed massively is the electrics, the days of gearing to finish a 5 minute race are long gone and you dont need to spend silly amounts for usable gear, my hobbywing esc and motor have way more poke than is strictly necessary and I thought I was going conservative with 13t!

Should have emphasised some of my words!
I still do the same thing, shop around, combine postage, look out for deals. But I don't *have* to. If I did, I wouldn't have any RCs, there are better things to spend those few pennies on. That's what I was getting at.
Not really, successful businesses employ people who know where the savings are to be made. Reusing jiffy bags (unless you are a small mail order business!) is generally a sign that the business isn't really successful......... Just looks like it!

£200 for a buggy in 1988 is the inflationary equivalent of £491 today...

by that logic, r/c racing is much cheaper that it ever was!

Back in 1988 I bought a second hand Associated RC10 gold tub for £100; four years ago I bought a second hand Factory Team B4 for £75.

i paid £200 for a betamax video player i can now buy a dvd player for £20 i used to aspire to bmw and mercedes now they are rep mobiles only a few things seem to have got more expensive houses energy and model cars maybe its because if they price them cheaper they would be seen as inferior audi is dearer than skoda they are the same company audi is perceived as being better because it costs more badge engineering

Well you do have a point there to some extent. Inflation is not uniform (which is why it calculated on the price of a bunch of things combined) and with technology prices do tend to come down as tech matures.
However you do have to consider contexts here. House prices have been the big driver of inflation, most retail items haven't gone up that much but they have increased. New cars are at least twice the price for an equivalent model to say compared to 25 years ago. New cars have more tech and last longer, so they don't seem more expensive, plus a strong used market keeps them attainable but the increase remains.
And so it is with RC. My current 210 cost me pretty much the same as the RC10 I got in 1989, both for the kit and the price of getting it running with a single pack. But the new car is faster, runs longer, drives better, is more adjustable etc.

The DVD argument is invalid. They are cheap cos its old tech that's dying. The latest players always cost a lot more.

He doesn't have a point, still ranting.
Average cost of a BMW/Merc since 1990 has almost doubled, halo models, nearer 400%. And pretty usual across the industry. Pretty much in line (give or take) with inflation.
The AUDI/VW/Skoda/SEAT agreement doesn't stand up to scrutiny for more than 10 seconds either, the tech used in the cars is at different stages in its life cycle as it reaches each brand. Usually with a two to three year delay, so much of the development costs have already been amortised across the AUDI volumes before VW start selling it, and so on. So VAG can keep making cash out of old tech. That's why the 1.9PD TDi engine has only just died in Skoda, it's not been in an AUDI for ~10 years.
Not saying AUDI aren't over priced, but you always pay more to be an early adopter of new technology. You always have.
Same with the early video machines, they were hard to make, lots of scrap, small market. DVD players are now made completely automatically, in their millions.
And it's a dying tech.

Houses haven't actually increased that much outside of a very few markets, mostly those with completely knackered legal systems and an unhealthy obsession with home ownership (UK basically.) The house I'm living in has tripled in value since it was built, 35 years ago (not in the UK!) this is common across the entire country. My first house, in the UK (in a fairly crap town) nearly doubled in the 4 years I owned it, and has nearly tripled again since then, 13 more years. So my 30 grand 2 bed terrace, sold for 170 grand last year, it still had the same (knackered) windows And front door that it had when I lived there! Your housing market is bolloxed, sort it out! ;)

Energy, not even worth talking about, it's a price fixing cartel, had been for decades, you either pay, or do without.
Toy cars, they've not even kept up with average salary increases, which are slightly behind inflation. Despite what politicians like to tell you.