Re: Varicom Big Grizzly
Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2012 5:35 pm
The Panda line was offered by Thunder Tiger. I have a buggy and a 1/10 carpet racer in nitro. I have not finished past this question, but Playtron made at least 2 other nitro buggy type vehicles, the Viva Arizona and the Mercedes 500K in Europe. For some reason the Viva was never offered in Europe, but the states could get either. It is sad to say, they are pretty much fading away. I have 5 Vivas and a Lynx. I have the 500K NIB. Of those, one is complete and running, one almost finished, all NOS parts, One under restoration, one junker and one that is stock played with, painted yellow. 4 of them will be restored. One lot off the bay came with 2 gallon zip lock's full of parts, for the 2 nitro's. The Lynx was built and parked, it is nearly perfect. I have the decal sheet for all 3 that I have. It is interesting to note that the Viva may have been one of the first electric start nitro's. They also made a radio controlled starter for airplanes, yeah have that too, geek factor. Like most stuff old, the price is based on the 3 c's, condition, etc. Since there are no parts for the most part, a primo condition in box specimen will attract the attention of collectors. However, the market for vintage is down like most everything else. Unless it is exceedingly rare, it has gone down since obummer. Kind of like our money, houses and self esteem. Anyway I like this brand and have all I could find. Playtron is one of my saved searches although I am finding a Google search results in more results than epay's search engine, it has changed big time. By the by, I have not parted with a car or other since I started collecting. I am not in it for the money. It usually starts out I see a car and find out what I can, usually a beater. Then after that one a better often started NIB comes along, sometimes a NIB as well. Then a parts search, could take years, and usually end up restoring all of them. Crazy, probably. To the point of insanity, positively!