Quote:
Originally Posted by Si Coe
I could have swore that 5% figure came from Associated themselves talking about RC10 sales. In the US in the mid/late 80's RC10's sold for bashing as much as racing, and many people bought them over Tamiyas simply because it was an American brand.
There is most certainly a market for an RC10 re-re, but I question if this is a good plan for Associated. Trading on past success is all well and good, but a 25 year old design doesn't fit well when you are trying to convince people you are a cutting edge company. It works for Tamiya because they trade heavily on nostalgia as it is.
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I don't think so, but I think that figure came from Traxass in their justification to stop producing race-specific products and venturing into the tamiya territory of marketing almost primarily to bashers/fun-runners.
Part of the marketing of the original RC10 to non-racers back in the day was its durability, as it cost roughly the same as a comperable Tamiya kit but didn't explode into a million plastic bits every time you hit something.
I just tend to think any accompanying backlash from AE loyalists, which in the States there are unbelievable numbers compared to the UK (or the rest of the world), with the time and resources spent on a repop - when their customer base has been clammoring for a B5 for at least 3 years now, will have protesters lined up outside their offices in California chanting and holding torches threatening to burn the place down compared to the relative few holding a candelight vigil in hopes of a long discontinued piece of nostagila.
We also need to remember AE's longstanding history of cloak-&-dagger advertising campaigns, and their first use of the Area51 moniker - heavily shadowed and backlit mystery photos, with wording alluding to something "coming soon," only to find out later that it's something else entirely.
So does one really think the boys would release pics of the original RC10 packaging, so as to sell a few cars to the vintage crowd - or is it instead a play on "going back to their roots" of having the first alloy tubed 2wd offroad buggy in preparation for the B5 getting the same alloy chassis (and midmotor option) that everyone else has so as to catch up in the marketplace and gain back their lost sales and following they've lost in the last 3-5 years?