What was revell thinking... Metal Bodies??

[jgmodelcars]

Alright, now I was looking forward to revell releasing new models, then i discovered 70% of them are metal bodies! I personally don't like using metal bodies, they are harder to modify, harder to paint custom, and overall less realistic looking due to their thickness.

They released the following in metal: RSX, Impreza, Another Civic, Another Eclipse, and i think thats all of em.

I mean I can go buy all these as tamiyas, but it will cost more. Plus what was revell thinking, i mean i know the immediate satisfaction factor for non long haul builders. But they could of won over a lot of modifiers like me if they made plastic kits.

Anyone else, agree, disagree, have anything to add??

[willimo]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the Eclipse and the next Civic they are putting out are plastic models?

The WRX and RSX are going to be metal, I know, and I'm pretty frustrated with that. I sure would like a Civic/Integra quality model of the WRX and RSX... But I figure what Revell is doing is watching the tuner market take off, and diecast sales exploding. Revell also realizes that some of us tuners are the hands on sort, and might want to build our own model, but lack the skill and patience to paint it all pretty like. So their comprimise: Prepainted, metal body, plastic other parts that has to all be screwed and glued together. Suddenly they are attracting a new market and (hopefully) moving them on to more serious modelling with plastic bodies and such. They hope it's an evolutionary leap or something. And I imagine they figure they can sell a couple of the metal bodies to people like me who are suddenly engine junkies, and would love to steal a nice plastic engine from the metal body for my Tamiya WRX and my Fujimi DC5

I agree, I wish they would use their time on something I want instead of this metal body junk. However, it seems to be rather shrewd business.

[jgmodelcars]

http://www.ehobbies.com/models-shop-...nese-cars.html


that has most of the revell japanese kits, most are metal

i agree about the engine junky thing, i'll probably buy a couple for the engines (as long as they're decent) but the body i might as well take and toss in the garbage. I agree willimo they are probably doing it to attract new modellers.

[ZoomZoomMX-5]

First of all, EHobbies isn't a great source of real-time information. The Revell RSX and WRX are nowhere near production. They announced them a year ago, and we still don't know any details. For all I know, Revell is tooling the round-headlight version of the WRX. They're so slow to get new stuff to market, and companies that pre-order their product put their stuff in the catalog like it's coming soon...nothing ever comes soon from Revell if it was just announced.

You won't get an Eclipse or RSX from Tamiya. You can get a crappy Eclipse in plastic from AMT. You can get an overpriced, somewhat questionably proportioned Japanese Integra from Fujimi.

The Revell '93 Civic coupe and Eclipse models are currently available as diecast bodies w/the rest of the model in plastic. They saw an opportunity with sales to upgrade these kits to ones w/plastic bodies, they are coming sometime in the next 12-18 months (Revell moves at glacial speed).

The reason Revell makes many new kits in diecast is for one reason alone...profit. If they can't make a business case for plastic, they can many times w/diecast. Many more people buy 'em when they don't have to monkey around w/painting the bodies.

Revell's diecast bodies are a lot better than most, since they don't include opening doors. Metal bodies are easy to strip and refinish, just harder to cut up.

I prefer plastic, and I wish Revell would do their kits in 1/24 instead of 1/25th. They're doing what they have to do to survive. The plastic kit market is a fraction of what the diecast market is.

[EMAXX]

I have a few metal body cars, and they really aren't that bad. You don't have to worry about sanding through the body, you can take a dremel to it and not have to worry. It is a little harder to cut up and stuff, but I don't do many body mods, so really doesn't affect me.