Serpent to close?
 

From Neo-Buggy.net...

I hope - for the sake of my wallet - that this is not true. Of course, I heard it a while back but thought it wasn't at this stage.

Noooo0000000000 00

What about My s500

no no no no no...

they should have consentrated on the the s500. I'm sure they wouldn't be faceing any finaticial difficulties if they had gone ahead with it. seen nuff peole drullin' over that car.

If this is true. It a very sad day for rc.:cry::cry::cry:

Hopefully it's just a nightmare and Serpent will issue a statement saying it's not true - I very much hope. the S500 is possibly the best looking RC ever - if it never appears it will be a desperate shame. But lets wait until Serpent confirm something themselves.

why was serpent at the recent Euros then?? or is this a case of 2+2=7 and lets all panic?

oh dear. What a great shame it would be if they shut down:o

This is really shocking! Weren't they about to release a 1/12th scale aswell? The nitro tarmac stuff they do is pretty much the best in the world and the electric touring car appeared to be a success too! If they are in financial difficulty, hopefully one of the big names can come in and incorporate/buy out or at least throw them a lifeline of some sort.

Update: We have received further information that a largescale relocation of the company to Asia is in the works as well as a complete re-branding, the Holland HQ will close.

source from neo-buggy

I smell a plastic chassis in the works.

That's terrible news.:thumbdown:
Hopefully some other company can buy them out and finish the cars that
they couldnt produce. That s500 looks like a sweet buggy.

http://www.redrc.net/2008/08/serpent...ction-to-asia/


Good news I think!!!!

I heard Lee had bought it as a passtime :o

Like the kid that Russian kid and TVR?

Are you drunk Dan?

hmmm, i can confirm its not me :cry: although it would be nice.


And yes i do believe dan has been on the pear cider early doors :thumbsup:

he means the bloke who bought TVR for his son.... although with him and Clarkson... they are verging on the Ash and B-Mag posting.

Super__Mag? :lol:

Dunno, have you looked at the quality of AE since they moved production :thumbdown:

when i was at the factory last month, they looked busy enough, and hads lots going on.
i do know thay have stopped production in the holland factory
s400 was manufactured in asia as are all the recent parts, serpent also own xceed brandand that is going to be done in asia,
can not see the base in holland shutting down, sure it will remain as r&d and head quarters

all is ok just read this after making my post

http://www.redrc.net/2008/08/serpent...ction-to-asia/

Made perfect sense to me, in fact I was already thinking exactly the same before I read Dans post :D

I hope that we don't end up with another Chinese cheese wagon when we could have seen a Dutch barnstormer

i dunno.. there is plenty of Dutch cheese... :p

to make it clear, they are not going bust, not sellingto anyone else, simply moving production to asia, this has been an ongoing move, and the s400 and curent cars are already made there.

the future is bright the future is orange!!!!!

Yeah baby yeah orange is better:D

than......?

in my case any other colour,
but i did hear red is faster and cheaper

LRP say "Blue is Better"

I still think orange is the best!:woot:

Orange is better. At least in escs :D

Neumann was seen with Durango decals intead of serpent decals on the German championships.

Strange!

or should that be Strenge ??

lol, NICE! :thumbsup:

the pic
http://www.vita-racing.de/gallery/ma...2_itemId=16238

1/8 -> LRP car , 1/10 4WD durango, 2WD Asso, only wearing durango shirts

I know Serpent quite well from racing 1:8 TR since 1995. I know the founder Pieter Bervoets quite well, and I also visited the factory many years ago.

This rumour about Serpent going bankrupt started already many years ago, so most likely it's not any more valid now than before... of course it's hard to compete against Mugen and Kyosho, with low producton costs. Furthermore many drivers see Serpent as "Microsoft" and kinda hate them for some strange reason... At some point more or less everybody drove a Serpent, but then "rebels" started using PB, Picco, Mugen, Kyosho...

Pieter sold his company to Ronald and Michael. He also founded Virtual RC, which is run by his son. Himself he's retired. A shame really, he really did so much good for RC. And always had so many good points at EFRA AGMs!

As to moving production to Asia, this is something all manufacturers have to do, it's simply a matter of cost. And they can produce exactly the quality you ask them to. Actually rumours had it that they alrady moved it MANY years ago! :D

Btw. I really miss myTSN! That was oOple web #1... and now it's all gone, what a waste! It was really ahead of it's time!

So, if Serpent isn't going bankrupt, where's the S500? :cry:

Since they are reorganizing the distribution I would assume it'll take some time... the S500 probably doesen't have very high priority. And with today's variety of cars it'd better be top notch quality... when they return to the OR scene (they have failed before) I'm sure they want to do it in style! :D

in style without Neumann and Strenge ?
i think the S500 will be released as a durango but i dont know if serpent has the copyright. we will see :yawn:

You think Serpent will rename it Durango just to trade on the name, or you mean Serpent will start a separate company, Durango, but I assume still mostly ran by Serpent?

What's going on? Is Strenge and Neumann no longer in colloboration with Serpent? I thought they hired Strenge?

Furthermore, what's the status on their coming 1:8 OR car?

I don't think you can talk about "copyright". That's for names, logos etc. I'm sure Dodge owns the name "Durango".

As to patent I don't think there's any patented solutions either. So anyone who wants can copy the chassis and start production tomorrow. 100% legally!

P.S. I believe it's "trademark", not copyright or patent?

I'm no expert, but I believe it's something like this:

Patent = technical invention (physical). Either brand new or new combination of existing patents. Must be applied for in each country

Trademark = protected name

Copyright = more like rights to a book / printed text etc. Typical for publishing houses.

You also can have rights for patterns etc. It's similar to logos. I think software actually is closely related to this.

Anyway, I doubt that even Gerd Strenge has the exclusive rights for the name Durango. And I believe nobody has any patents as to the Durango chassis. So Aero or whoever can go ahead and produce a copy if they like :D