How many MFH kits actually get built?

[Bugatti Fan]

I have seen some absolutely beautiful models made from MFH kits both at shows and on various online forums like this one by highly skilled modellers.

It would be interesting to know how many MFH kits actually get built as a percentage against the number of kits sold?   

As a parallel example there are many of the old Pocher classics kicking around either not built or part built and abandoned as their owners have either been put off by their complexity and found them to be beyond their model making capabilities. I would guess also that a number of the old Pochers were bought by real car enthusiasts without good modelling experience or equipment, looked at, and tucked away in lofts and spare rooms.

[Bugatti Fan]

Surprised at no contributions to this thread so far?????

[1930fordpickup]

Noel what is a MFH kit?

[Nacho Z]

14 minutes ago, 1930fordpickup said:

Noel what is a MFH kit?

Andy, it is Model Factory Hiro.  High dollar, multi-media kits.  I have one in my stash.

[Mark]

Probably a similar percentage to other resin kits, or multi-media kits like Gunze Sangyo High-Tech.  People buy them, look them over, and often decide their own skill level isn't up to the task yet.  So the kit sits until they decide they can build it, or until they (or a family member, after they pass) sells it to someone else, starting the cycle anew...

[Oldriginal86]

I don’t need to start with a known complex kit, I create my own frustration with a relative easy kit. Wonder who the manufacturer was looking to market these kits to? 

[Hamata1972]

There’s a guy in Houston that’s seems to be all he builds in the model contest, he has the large scale c8 , the Ferrari 1/12 formula 1 and mp4/8 mclaren the momo Ferrari and some others 1/24 scale this guy has them down to a science sometimes his building at the shows putting fitting and wiring together there, he builds them super fast and his work is some of the best 

[Mark]

Some people want complicated kits, sometimes a manufacturer will put one out there to show what they are capable of.  Complicated = more workbench time per kit.  The guys building military subjects seem to be gravitating towards that, and away from the simpler stuff.  A lot of the car guys being cheapskates, yeah, they want it too providing they can get it with a 40% off coupon...

[Ace-Garageguy]

17 minutes ago, Oldriginal86 said:

I don’t need to start with a known complex kit, I create my own frustration with a relative easy kit...

Yup.   

[Ace-Garageguy]

From my perspective, it seems to be fairly obvious that the more complex any "kit" is, the more developed and diverse skill set it requires, the less likelihood it will get completed by its initial purchaser.

It appears to be just as true for model cars as for model ships, railroad equipment and structures, and even real full-scale "kit cars" and "kit planes".

Full-scale Meyers Manx-style dune buggies got completed in high numbers, as all they required was removing the body from a VW Bug pan, shortening same by 14 inches, and bolting the pre-finished (colored gelcoat) glass body on. At the other end of the full-scale kit car spectrum, complex kits like GT40 replicas often languished for years barely started, and eventually got sold on, often multiple times. Same goes for kit planes.

This ends up being a benefit to those who, possibly many years on, can acquire virgin or only slightly bodged examples of things long out of production, sometimes even at a fraction of their adjusted-for-inflation original cost.

Most of the resin and multimedia kits I've acquired, mostly of somewhat esoteric subjects, fit in the above category.

My own slightly irrational continuing to add to a hoard of kits that's already well beyond any possibility of completing in a normal human lifespan, at least ensures that I'll never lack for something I find interesting on any given day, and when I'm gone, as Mark says, the cycle starts anew.  

Edited March 25, 2023 by Ace-Garageguy
TYPO

[Mark]

My older brother once told me he spoke with a guy who owned one of the companies that sold fiberglass "kit car" bodies.  Supposedly that guy told him the completion rate on bodies other than dune buggies was about three percent.  As in, out of every hundred sold, only three ever hit the streets as a finished car. 

I'd guess the various Cobra replicas and things like Auburn speedsters had a much higher completion rate, as those were more complete and more finished than other 'glass bodies like the Kellison items for example. 

And a lot of the completed cars seem to not get a lot of use.  Insurance for one thing, another might be things like poor ventilation or rough ride that might kill the initial buzz pretty quickly.

After buying my house in 1989, for the first few years there was a car covered with a tarp sitting in one of the driveways up the street.  The tarp eventually came off revealing one of those Kellison GT40 bodies, the car looked like it may have been completed at some point.  Not long after that, it disappeared never to be seen there again.

Edited March 25, 2023 by Mark
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[1930fordpickup]

7 hours ago, Nacho Z said:

Andy, it is Model Factory Hiro.  High dollar, multi-media kits.  I have one in my stash.

Thanks for the answer.  They are kits beyond my skill set. 

[1930fordpickup]

When it comes to real cars and other big projects there is an old saying around here. You have to have, time and money.