Testors Model Master paint

[Ace-Garageguy]

The reason General Motors got out of the business is General Electric.  If GM was making any money with their locomotives, it wasn't enough, and when GE started expanding their offerings, with better product, GM realized they were not going to be competitive in the market and dropped out.

Caterpillar / Progress Rail seemed to think otherwise, bought the division, and last time I looked, they were still operating in the black.

http://www.caterpillar.com/en/company/brands/progress-rail.html

http://www.progressrail.com/en/rollingstock/locomotives/freight/sdacet4.html

https://www.cat.com/en_US/by-industry/marine/electromotive-diesel-engines.html

Here's the actual story of the competition between Cat / EMD and GE

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/article3876002.html

 

[High octane]

Testors replied and following is the OFFICIAL word from them.

Happy to clear things up, Jim! Unfortunately, the International Military & Figure Enamels were discontinued due to the lack of support for them in the marketplace. The rest of our Model Master line, however, is still available.

Great news, thanks!

[modelercarl]

Caterpillar / Progress Rail seemed to think otherwise, bought the division, and last time I looked, they were still operating in the black.

http://www.caterpillar.com/en/company/brands/progress-rail.html

http://www.progressrail.com/en/rollingstock/locomotives/freight/sdacet4.html

https://www.cat.com/en_US/by-industry/marine/electromotive-diesel-engines.html

Here's the actual story of the competition between Cat / EMD and GE

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/article3876002.html

 

All of this just confirms what I said.....GM realized they were not going to be competitive and got out of the business, Caterpillar (already a more successful builder/supplier in this market) bought the assets and eventually adopted the product improvements that General Electric had and started producing more competitive engines.

[crazyjim]

Did you ever buy Lucent Technologies stock, Mark?

[Ace-Garageguy]

All of this just confirms what I said.....GM realized they were not going to be competitive and got out of the business, Caterpillar (already a more successful builder/supplier in this market) bought the assets and eventually adopted the product improvements that General Electric had and started producing more competitive engines.

The time line indicates otherwise.

GM was either losing interest in or losing talent at EMD by the late 1980s when GE overtook them in market share. A company that pretty much invented the diesel-electric locomotive configuration and historically dominated the market should have been able to stay "competitive" had there been the desire and ability to do so. 

But EMD was still a major player in 1999 (considering Southern Pacific's order of 1000 SD-70 locomotives...the largest order for locomotives in the history of the known universe).

In 2004, CSX Railroads bought the first order of the advanced SD70ACe locomotives from EMD. These locomotives met the new Tier2 emissions requirements, and went on to meet Tier3 emissions requirements that would last through 2014 as well. They were hardly the products of a company that wasn't "competitive".

However, it was also in 2004 that GM put EMD up for sale.

In 2010, Caterpillar completed the purchase. The same year, EMD still had 30% of the market...again, quite "competitive", though a long way down from where they'd been. And for the same year, 2010, GM's global automotive market share was less than 12%.

It wasn't until later that it became apparent the SD70ACe couldn't be easily modified to meet the stringent Tier4 emissions requirements that went into effect in 2015.

However, the POINT of the comparison here with the hobby paint manufacturer was simply to show that a large company sometimes decides to walk away from a perfectly viable, profit-making small division.

 

[Mark]

Testors doesn't seem to be reinvesting in their products, then when support drops off they dump them.  They've dropped a handful of the automotive lacquer colors rather than fix them in response to a few complaints.  When was the last time they brought out new colors in that line?

[PARTSMARTY]

THANK YOU SIR !!

x2

[Mr. Metallic]

Thanks for the info about the Testors product line in this thread.

Glad to see it's not as bad as originally feared

[peteski]

 

Glad to see it's not as bad as originally feared

But it still seems like we are on a downward spiral as far as the Testors paints go.

[Snake45]

Testors replied and following is the OFFICIAL word from them.

Happy to clear things up, Jim! Unfortunately, the International Military & Figure Enamels were discontinued due to the lack of support for them in the marketplace. The rest of our Model Master line, however, is still available.

Maybe a decade ago they brought out a line--it amounted to another whole rack--of WWII and modern aircraft (and some armor) colors for Germany, Britain, Italy, France, Russia, Japan, and maybe a few others. They've been dropping colors out of this line, a few at a time, ever since (along with a few US colors). Now apparently all the "internationals" are gone. Not a huge loss for us here in Model Car World. 

Testors drops and re-introduces colors all the time. Kiln Red Metallic and Transparent (Candy) Green went extinct for a long time, and now they're back. 

[PARTSMARTY]

Great news, thanks!

x2