Art Anderson

When Andy Granitelli started offering STP decals at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the early 1960's--he SOLD them, regardless of whether or not other race car sponsors or secondary sponsors gave their logo's away or not. I was there, saw and experienced that. "Free Advertising" does seem to have it's limits. Art

AMEN! Thanks Tom for adding the very important part about "product liability"--the lifeblood of personal injury lawyers. Art

Frankly, That's rather proprietary information--having had experience dealing with licensing with a former employer, anything I might say as to costs might give away information that I'd best not do. Art

Most "licensing" is paid for up front, by the model or toy company. Basically, the company wanting to produce (fill in the blank here) in a model kit estimates the number of units (kits or preassembled promo's or toys) and then takes the licensing fee per unit, multiplies that out over that number of units they expect to sell within a set period of time (it may be a year, or multiple years depending on the product). If the licensor (the company owning the copyright, trademark, or design) agrees, a check gets cut and sent to them for that amount. If the model or toy manufacturer produces and sells the agreed-on number of units within the time frame set out in the license, then all is good--even up. If the model or toy manufacturer sells more than the licensing agreement states as the minimum or "set amount", then they will have to settle with the licensor for the additional license fee for each extra unit sold. IF however, the licensee (the company wanting to use another's copyright, trademark or design) doesn't meet the agreed on number of units sold--they will have to negotiate with the licensor to either extend the time frame, transfer the unused part of the prepaid royalty to another product, or if not, the licensee pretty much has to "eat" the expense. With most licensors though, they want to see the licensor succeed (good relations between licensor and licensee are generally considered to be essential, particularly with ongoing, long-running product lines (such as model car kits), so generally speaking, licensees and their licensors tend to work together on all these things. Licensing probably isn't a serious "money cow" for automakers or the producers of products used on cars, be those things for "street use" or in racing. But it is a way of protecting their works from just any Tom, Dick or Harry (sorry Harry P!) from just slapping that name or design on anything and everything--if that were to happen, imagine the confusion if every auto company were to start producing cars labeled "Chevrolet" for example, or if every tire company decided to mark their tires as say, Goodyear or Firestone. Who's making the genuine Chevrolet or Goodyear tires in that case? Hmmm? But it does cost money to pay the people who are charged with the responsibility of the paperwork to grant a license to say, Revell, Moebius, or Round2 AMT? In the general scheme of things, licensing costs are not the biggest expense in developing, producing and selling model car kits, even though they do add some cost--and at the price of a model car kit, while it might seem crazy to suggest this, but in a very real way, a penny here, a nickel or dime there, pretty soon it can add up enough to seriously affect the cost of producing a model kit--but that's just a fact of business life. So, with something like tires for a model car kit (which are generally the most expensive tooling that gets created) it might make sound business sense to omit tire names on model kit tires. We can wish that it were otherwise, but unfortunately, that's often the case. Art

Years ago, AMT included some wrinkled "Wrinkle-wall" slicks in several kits. They were done in hard styrene if memory serves me correctly--and I believe they did have a flat "contact patch" that coincided with the wrinkled sidewalls. Art

The problem with mastering and tooling a treaded tire (think street use here) in hard styrene as a 2-piece unit is that unless the tread area is tapered (almost cone-shaped) there would be no chance of adding any tread detail. Model parts have to come out of the mold, and while the sidewall area can "pull away" straight off the mold, the tread area of any plastic model tire that is molded either as a one-piece unit or even if split in halves down the middle of the tire tread area simply has to move "sideways" against the surface of the tooling. Soft plastics such as PVC, even neoprene or other synthetic rubber can do that with relative ease, as any detailing on the tread can flex against the steel tooling surface making such tread as is tooled, and do that for a long, long time (eventually, of course even PVC detailed surfaces slide sideways ACROSS a steel mold surface will wear that area noticeably). Hard plastics, such as styrene won't flex in order to be pulled sideways against any sort of detail at all, in fact a hard styrene cylindrical part has to be tooled with at least a slight draft angle in order to avoid inevitable "scuff" or "scratch marks" on whatever model part is molded. Sidewall detail is something that has always been possible with PVC and certainly synthetic rubber model car tires. However, it does seem to me that the overwhelming majority of model car builders have, for decades, far preferred as much tread pattern detail as can be produced. Another thought, which Harry P. mentioned very early in this thread, would be to make the tread as a separate styrene strip or strips, to be bent around the circumference of the tire. That could give superb detail, but here again, I would wonder just how well that would be received by the overall model car hobby. As for the flat "contact patch" where the tire meets the pavement, and the inevitable sidewall bulge--that's something that has been tried in model aircraft kits, at least by the resin aftermarket serving that part of the scale modeling hobby. This would have to be quite subtle, lest the tire look noticeably underinflated. Also, the contact patch of a properly inflated automobile tire isn't all that large, perhaps about 4" by the width of the tread. This is something I'd wonder if the hobby in general would accept such a feature of model car tires were it to be done, even successfully. Art

You say "Custom Van"? If you are building a 70's-style custom van, customizers liked to use some pretty outrageous shag carpeting, which was quite popular in houses back then (remember shag carpet with nap so long that you used a "carpet rake" or carpet comb to raise the loops up to get the full effect? For that style carpet, you might look at cheaper terry cloth towels or washcloths (or go to a fabric store and check out their terry cloth selection). Terry cloth was a material we teenagers used for carpets in customs we were building back in the early 60's, and it can have a very nice effect. Another fabric that might work is velvet. Of course, velvet has a good bit of "sheen" to it, but with an airbrush and LIGHTLY airbrushing some flat finish paint on it after it's glued down in place should give it the flat finish appearance that scale deep pile carpet should have. I'd check a good fabric store, such as Jo-Ann Fabrics if you have one in a reasonable driving distance, looking for fabrics with a "pile" texture to their surface--often times fabric stores will have remnants on sale (remnants are the leftovers from bolts of cloth that are too small for making a piece of clothing, but may still be useful--they tend to sell remnants at a fraction of the price per yard off a full bolt. Art

Are you talking about replicating, say insulated electrical wiring, loomed wiring harness, small tubing such as fuel or air lines? It seems to me, based on 4 or 5 truck kits I superdetailed 30-35 years ago, that in researching the real rigs, I saw a wide variety of wiring and plumbing sizes used on those. Art

I don't know that I've ever set a limit to the amount I would spend on building a single model car, although I have several resin kits bought over the years that ranged in the $90-$100 price range. Of course, the older I get, and the closer to inevitable retirement, I suspect my days of going that far price-wise are pretty much behind me. That's not because I have some set prejudice toward a maximum price I'd pay, but simple economics has a way of doing it for anyone, and one of these days, that "anyone" likely will be me. Art

I guess the only way you will find out really for true, up or down, is to come up with the $150.000 to $200,000 to get the tooling made for whatever truck on piece of construction equipment you want kitted in 1/25 scale plastic--and go for it. If you are right--you'll be a hero to lots of model builders. If you turn out to be wrong, then while at least you will have tried, you'd likely be broke. And truthfully, I'd hate to see you, or any other entrepreneur go bust. Art

Or perhaps, that wholesalers and hobby shops should stock them, regardless. Art

Harry, and all here: I should have mentioned this days ago in this discussion: To understand what I'm laying out here, keep one thing in mind, and that is that producing injection-molded plastic model kits is a mass production enterprise. As such, as with any mass production company or industry, the rapid movement of products (plastic model kits in this case) to the end consumer simply has to happen, otherwise, why bother to deal in anything that is to be mass-produced. This means that "The Law of Large Numbers" simply does drive manufacturing decisions, as well as marketing decisions all along the way. To "blame" model kit manufacturers for somehow "ignoring" a product area, or even potential customers for same, exclusively is to forget two other steps in the process (the link if you will) between manufacturers and us as modelers; and those are (1) the wholesalers and (2) the retailers (your LHS, or wherever you buy your model kits). A LHS most generally gets model kits through one or more wholesale distributors. This is a well-established process, going back well over a century. Local merchants (not the Big Box outfits, but the smaller, locally owned specialized retailers) rely on wholesalers to provide the warehousing function, allowing them to buy in bulk, and distribute to them and their colleagues as their needs for merchandise dictate. That's been the most cost-efficient way of stocking a retail store ever since the late 19th Century--a local merchant, such as your LHS doesn't have to have a huge upstairs stockroom, buy everything in case lots--stock it back and hope that they can sell it all before it becomes "dead stock" (unsalable). So, model kit manufacturers simply have to convince (sell) the wholesaler first. Next, model kit manufacturers have to "sell" the local hobby shops, along with the relative handful of mail/phone/internet dealers that the products they have produced and plan to produce will sell for them as well, which leads to the third step--convincing US as modelers that such-and-such is so cool, so neat, that we simply must have at least one. But, the first line of acceptance of a new product (and by definition, the first line of resistance to any new product) remains the wholesaler. Virtually all of them (and this step also includes the corporate "buyers" for the huge chain stores as well!) are very well versed in their product lines, their market--they have access to not days, but literally years (even decades) of sales data on which they at least partly base whatever decisions they have to make. And, those buyers, either in wholesaling or mass-merchandising had better be on top of their game lest they find themselves being escorted out of the building to walk the unemployment lines (after all, they are charged with the responsibility of investing their employers' money in merchandise that will sell in whatever time frame is expected, profitably!). Second, your local hobby dealer has to make the same decisions: "Do I lay in this new item because I know it will sell (based on past experience) and if yes, then how many should I order up front in order to miss out on as few sales as possible (again in what to that dealer seems to be a reasonable time frame!)?" A relatively new hobby shop owner might be overly cautious, or he/she might make buying decisions on a "gut feeling", perhaps almost flying blind--but with capital always being more scarce than any business person would like, caution almost always is a watch-word. Key here is profitability in a reasonable time frame. A mass merchant, such as any of the "-Marts" generally expects merchandise delivered to any of their stores to go through the cash register in 30-45 days, while a local hobby shop might say, within perhaps 3 months or so. Because their available capital is always much less than what they potentially might sell of any item in a year, all merchants deal with "inventory turnover", meaning how many times can they sell that say $100 worth of merchandise in a given year. These are pretty much the basic factors with which any wholesaler or retailer simply must work. A wholesaler (and the mass merchants simply do their own wholesaling--that's why, for example, Walmart has huge warehouses positioned strategically all around the World and their own truck line to move stock from warehouse to individual stores) deals in quantities of case lots (generally a dozen per case with a 1/25 scale model car, usually 6 per case of larger kits, such as trucks). They also want to see those case lots move out quickly, even though they may break down cases (and generally do!) for hobby shops buying kits in 1's, 2's or 3's. Larger hobby shops, well established, and with a good amount of experience, may well order in new kits by the case--but only "onesie-twosie" with existing kits ordered for replacement stock. So, with all this middlemen, etc., why don't model kit manufacturers just bypass the distribution channel, and just sell to us direct? Simple: They need to sell a production run of perhaps 30-50 thousand of a kit quickly, to put money back in the bank to pay their bills, and hopefully fund the next new model kit. So, a lot of resistance out there to some of the types of model kits some as almost insisting on as sure winners, comes from links in this distribution chain other than the local hobby shop owner, and indeed perhaps even his or her customers. Almost always, with a new, almost "off the wall" type of model kit, for which there is either no previous sales experience on which to gauge possible sales of it OR historical data which shows that previous model kits of the same or similar TYPES of kit subjects did not sell either adequately or quickly enough to meet the needs of the manufacturer, the wholesaler, or the end retailer meet with resistance up to and including outright rejection. Art

True, But, if one looks around at shows, there are a lot of 20's adults, and Id bet many of them entered this hobby either late in HS or soon after. In addition, a child or teenager who builds models isn't always the son or daughter of a currently active model builder--kids like that don't have an automatic ride to an NNL or a contest. Art

To the best of my knowledge, no reissue of the CAT D8H kit has been a run of more than perhaps 5,000 to 7,000 kits. That's not nearly enough, from what I know of the model kit industry, to suggest that a new kit in that field would generate enough sales to pay back the cost of tooling it, particularly in 1/25 scale. On the other hand, it's been mentioned in this discussion of a company having put out some 1/35 scale kits of construction equipment. Well, that scale does have a huge following, as it's the primary scale for modelers of military armor and soft-skin vehicles--but even that segment of military modeling (think IPMS types, who do aircraft, armor, ships and military figures & diorama's) is not nearly the market there at aircraft kits are--for whatever reasons. In addition, 1/35 scale construction equipment would be pretty much a natural fit with 1/34 scale diecast model trucks, as that is still a pretty decent market from what I can see. And yes, of course, times have changed, but one thing hasn't--plastic model companies are simply NOT in Fortune 500 territory--and never have been (although Monogram was owned by Mattel for a number of years, and that toy company was on the Fortune 500 list in those times). For any model company in the US, tooling a new model kit is a major investment--for that reason, the number of new kit releases yearly are fairly small compared to a lot of the general manufacturing industry, and the development/tooling costs are still a major investment, per tool, per a year's announcement of new kits. Sure, jumping in to do any new model kit release is a risky jump over a cliff--but any model company exec worth his salt to his employer is going to do as much as possible to minimize the risk of losing money on any given product--they simply have to, first of all, for their own job security, and the company itself for its own profitability, even perhaps its own survival in the long run. Art

Well, since you have correctly put it this way--where are the truck modelers, in a crowd sufficient to absorb say, 50,000 to 100,000 of a newly tooled truck or construction equipment model kit in a 2-year period--of course in 1/25 or 1/24 scale? Art

Mebbe take a stab at kickstarter?????

An old adage in biology, which any sociologist, even a business management professor almost assuredly knows, and repeats: "An organism must grow in order to survive. When it stops growing, it starts to die" (meaning that even our bodies must continue to grow, replace dead cells wherever needed or possible in order to survive. This adage is just as true with any group of people, informal (the overall population of model car hobbyists) or formal (like an organized model car club) as it is with living organisms: "An organization (you can substitute "model car kit marketplace" here) must grow in order to survive. When it stops growing, it starts to die." What that means is, that as modelers either quit, or die--go away for whatever reason, unless there are new modelers entering the hobby and its marketplace, eventually model car building itself will die away--be a thing of the past that is no longer done. If one thinks about that--this hobby has grown, and it has shrunk, several times since it truly began over 60 years ago. But yet, model car building is still around as a hobby sufficiently large to make a market not only for model car kits, but a constantly changing and evolving group of industries that support and supply it. "The rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated!" --Samuel Clemens a/k/a Mark Twain Art

"Adventures in Scale Modeling" was underwritten by the Testors Corporation. Art

I think a simple answer would be that not since the late John Hanle owned the now-gone JoHan Models Company, has an actual owner of a plastic model company in the US been the principal person making decisions as to what the company will or won't produce. (Of course, Tom Lowe owns Round2 pretty much, and I suspect that he's in the ultimate "driver's seat" where product decisions there are concerned). In virtually every model company today (and it's been that way for a long, long time) product decisions, and certainly new product development has, and is being done by employees of the company. I don't know of any employee of any company that isn't ultimately responsible to see that what he/she does at work is actually of benefit to his/her employer--do you really? If the people making product decisions (from the "light bulb" of "inspiration" to the final production item!) are coming up with products that are beneficial to their employer (the company they work for), then all is well and good from that standpoint. BUT, make too many bad calls (and often, a "bad call" on a new product can be so significantly bad as to cause the termination of the person(s) who were responsible for it!) and those employees very likely are going to have to look for another job. An interesting saying I see every day at work: "Good judgement comes from experience, and a lot of experience comes from bad judgement". To me, that statement really says a lot about the issue being discussed here. Art

Brett, I'd suggest that you are far more right than wrong in your assessment. Rather than use the terms "passive" and active--I submit that the terms introverted and extroverted model builders probably best describes both sorts. Over the years, both directly in some aspect or another of the hobby business, I've heard more than my share of model car kit buyers simply stating that their's is a "closet" pastime--due to an at least perceived ridicule from friends or associates about their continuning to "play" with children's toys--something I can remember being teased about by more friends, relatives and acquaintances than I care to remember about. For other "introverted" or "closet" modelers, theirs' is a hobby they prefer to enjoy in complete privacy--truly a bit of an escape from the cares and stresses of everyday life (probably most of us do that too, but some people take it to a more extreme level, it seems). Art

Also Management 101, and of course, Economics 101.

Hmnmm, I must admit to either ignorance, or a lack of desire to travel great distances--but I have never run across a model club devoted primarily, let along exclusively to model truck building.

Ben, Merely reissuing a model kit almost never equals the production numbers needed on first release of a new kit in order to pay back the costs of bringing it out. Back in the late 1970's, while delivering some box art models to AMT Corporation, I suggested a reissue of the D8H tractor--I was told that when the kit was first issued, in 1972--it literally bombed, badly. However, considering that the loss on that tooling was written off decades ago, any reissue of it can be done in production runs far smaller than were originally needed for the kit to be profitable, so such costs as are involved in a reissue (and those aren't exactly chopped liver!) can be absorbed and paid back with runs of only a very few thousand kits or so. Reissue VS newly tooled kit? Apples and Oranges, my friend. Art

Just because it's produced is not a guarrantee of money in the bank. Trust me, Moebius didn't come about those Hudsons and Chrysler 300's lightly--a lot of thinking, and a lot of discussion as to what, and as to why, then as to how went on for a couple of years before those projects got started. Believe me, nobody in the model kit industry does anything on a "whim", or just their own light-bulb moment--there's a ton of thought given to any new product, up front, long before we in the marketplace see even an announcement. Art

Ditto, what you just said!