niteowl7710

The great irony of this little back and forth is the guy who never says a negative thing ever about the kits he reviews - for obvious reasons, gotta keep that swag train rolling - comes in here and reacts negatively to someone's opinion.

The M3 Evo Sport II is the next modified reissue due next month. The next new tool will be the Mitsubishi Lancer Rally car which is probably a May release. The next modified reissue will then either be a rebox of the Cruze with Macau liveries or the Toyota Carina BTCC reboxed of the Corona. The next new kit will be the Starion - soooo...late Summer.

Beemax keeps hiring more and more of their own employees or contracting things (like decal artwork) out to people not associated with Aoshima. If they keep hitting on subject matter it makes me wonder how much longer that dual-"branding" on the box will last. Perhaps once they get the last version of the MP4/4 out the door later this summer as that was the one kit Aoshima had a particularly heavy role in developing.

Yes I believe so, one of the guys expressed interest in doing photographs and the last I heard at the meeting last Monday they were coming up with a way to designate which builds they'll shoot separately.

Just a reminder to the Pittsburgh Area folks you only have a few weeks to get things wrapped up for the show. Sunday March, 31st at Castle Shannon Volunteer Fire Hall. If you're coming from out of town and looking for something to do Saturday, the Pittsburgh IPMS Club has their annual Tri-Con on Saturday the 30th at the A.W. Beattie Career Center in Allison Park, PA (Northern Pittsburgh Suburbs) http://tricon.tripms.org/

As a point of order, since I see the "When is xyz coming?" question asked so much. What Casey is posting are the newest kits added to the Stephens International Distribution list, the newest stuff Round2 is releasing a kit number for at the time. Generally speaking these kits are 4-6 months from being released. So this latest batch - unless something shows unusually high pre-order interest - is late 2Q/early 3Q releases.

I can't wait for the '55 Chevy Hostess tie in...*eye roll*

Aoshima has turned into the Round2 of Japan. They've only made two new tool kits in the past 2 years (ProBox and R34 Sedan) everything else has been reissues of existing tooling into new kit marketing lineups, for...2...years. The LB R35s are modified reissues which there are now 5 of pushing the limits of interest for pretty much everyone. The most recent Huracan and Pagani versions were kits planned several years ago. I'd also add that a $8 toy for kids can't be compared to an actual model kit.

COCA COLA ALL THE THINGS!!!! *sigh*

I ordered a couple of kits from him earlier this month and it took 13 days to ship out in-stock items. That was 24hrs before I was about to send out a nastygram, and I suppose it was free shipping because of the special he's running. But still I barely consider that acceptable these days, and I know Mark has a straight job that take precedent over the hobby stuff. But those 13 days included 4 weekend days...

Because that's what the builder put on the info card...it says F-100 4x4.

Well "outsourcing" in terms of how we view it in America is moving jobs somewhere out of the country to a place with cheaper labor and economic pricing. When the U.S. Big 3 sent jobs to Mexico for example, GM/Ford/FCA own those facilities, their line cost for auto autoworkers is about $14/hr, which about half of what a UAW worker in Michigan would make.

Just checked my Ford GT and it says "Made in the Phillipines" on it, so obviously that outsourcing continues then.

For the longest time they were outsourcing the actual injection molding and production to a facility in the Phillipines. I really haven't paid attention to where the recent kits have been made.

It's a resin kit from Modeler's out of Japan.

And you know full well Tamiya can't price them on the lower end of the spectrum because their kits tend to only have one release per tool. Granted there are plenty of options if they really wanted to explore an entire series of Mustang offerings, but one and done full detail tooling of a Mustang is going to cost way more than the average MURICA!! REVELL!!! modeler is going to pay for them. I mean someone else in this thread (albeit tongue in cheek I believe) pointed out there's already that Build n Play version of the current generation Mustang and that thing is like $8. Look at what the Galaxie Chevies cost and that was a multi-use tool. Look how much the Salvino JR NASCAR kits are running and those all share the same God awful MPC Era "think tank" generic adjustable chassis and have multiple kits per new body over them. I don't necessarily think you're wrong in wanting the engine per se, but I do believe you're being unrealistic in the practical business terms of producing it in the prevailing headwinds.

Couple of things from 1999 (aka Hobby Search) Out of the blue they acquired two of these and were selling them for their original 2012 prices. And who doesn't need a Camry?

Yeah Yeah here we go with the Ford engine thing out of Tim again In all seriousness are you, or anyone else for that matter, going to really pay in the $60 range for a Mustang kit just to get an engine? The NSX and Ford GT are $40-45 Tamiya kits for a reason. Even with what the NSX gets its hardly an entire engine. Considering what price static they'd be up against - Revell Mustangs were $20 or less - they be better off doing something brutally basic ala Revell's "pre-paint" '14 kit to keep those tooling costs down to bare bones.

There are at least 9 Porsches in the Tamiya 1/24 catalog currently just doing an odd the top of my head count.

The rides to win are indeed R/C cars. If Tamiya has another 1/24 kit cooking it won't break cover til Fall. They still haven't gotten the Ford GT out in Japan itself, and the TS050 is on deck as the next new tool.

Pirelli wheels come in the Pirelli version of the Golf that was released by RevellAG last summer.