The Logic behind kits being reissued or not.

[Harry P.]

I wished all model manufactures did a picture of all the parts / sprue on the bottom of the box...

I agree. Seeing what's in the box would help the consumer with his/her buying decision.

[Daddyfink]

Well, most time it is tooling conditions, current trends and sell factors.

Example One. Tooling. Tom West told me about how Revell kept getting request for the Tony Nancy Double Dragster but they could not do it since the molds where literally cut in half! The kit was used to make the Revellion Funny Car and so was the 1962 Dodge tooling. They did no want to pay to make new chrome trees for the kit so it was not re-released, until, Tom found the other part of the tooling laying on dusty bench. The tooling was repaired and now you have the Tony Nancy double kit back. The Dodge was not rescued and I think it was scrapped.

Example Two. The General Lee! Tom told me about how MPC had the T.V. contract for Warner Bros. and decided to do a kit for the show. Tom thought the thing would not really go after seeing the pilot for the show and it was shelved. After the show came out and it took off, the scramble was on to get a kit out and thus, the Dodge Charger 500 Stock Car kit was used with some mods to the tool to make the kit. To date, it is the biggest selling kit of all time! So why bother restoring that tool?

Example Three. Sometimes they do not sell too good and they get dumped. Take for example the Aurora Racing Scenes. Possibly the line that sank Aurora! Now, they are highly sought collector items! Back then, you could not give them away. Some of the tooling does still exist, but, would it be worth it to do a line of 1/16th scale stuff these days? I would love it! But, no, it would be a very niche market.

So there you go! Take its for what its worth!

Edited December 15, 2012 by Daddyfink

[Tom Geiger]

Example Three. Sometimes they do not sell too good and they get dumped. Take for example the Aurora Racing Scenes. Possibly the line that sank Aurora! Now, they are highly sought collector items! Back then, you could not give them away. Some of the tooling does still exist, but, would it be worth it to do a line of 1/16th scale stuff these days? I would love it! But, no, it would be a very niche market.

That goes with the theory that a couple of high dollar eBay sales of an old kit don't make for a market where they could sell thousands at current kit prices! We've seen how that works and I have bought some of the reissues for $5 each as dealers try to get rid of them.

[Art Anderson]

As long as model companies exist, and as long as they reissue older kits, there will be this disconnect with those modelers too young to remember that years ago, that kit they just bought as a reissue, is a look back at model car kits as they once were. That is a conundrum, pure and simple. We older modelers love to see "an old friend" come back to the hobby shop shelves, but younger builders (not necessarily kids, but still 20 yrs or so younger than us sextegenerian modelers, see them as substandard--given that their experience never included those AMT/MPC/JoHan 3in1 annual series kits of now yesteryear.

Art