Tips and tricks for buying a discontinued rere

[gkatz]

Hi all; first post ever om rc10talk...
Any tips on how to be able to purchase cars like the XLS rere which are discontinued?
eBay has some listings for outrageous amounts so that's not an option for me.
I have the time and patience but pockets aren't deep.

Any suggestions?
Thanks!

[GoMachV]

If you are after an XLS you are kind of stuck searching hobby shops that might still have new old stock. If you are USA based, Amain is where most of the Schumachers come from, and they are a distributor to smaller shops that cant afford the buy in for Horizon and HRP. That means you can often find Schumacher through mom and pops shops more so than chain stores.

If you goal is just to build one, Stormer has the Procat on sale for $299, $100 less than Amain right now. There are not many differences between the two- you could round up the few necessary parts to build a proper XLS.

[terry.sc]

If it's discontinued you have to treat looking for it like an original, with potentially more of them around. If you must have it now and have deep pockets there's plenty of options for big money from people who are looking to flip nib kits. Otherwise it's sitting and waiting for one to pop up at a reasonable price. If you want new in box you are always going to pay a premium but new built ones that have just sat on the shelf until the owner needs some extra cash or they get bored with the hobby are a lot cheaper.

Set up a saved search on ebay so you get notified of any new listings and wait, facebook marketplace and in the rc groups on there is a good place to find rc cars as there's no fees but the search is rubbish and you have to be much more wary of the sellers as there's no protection for buyers. You can post wanted ads on facebook but i'd say the vast majority of replies you will get right now are from scam artists.

As Gomachv said, you could modify a Procat. While the cars are very different with totally different transmissions and rear suspension, fitting an XLS chassis and body will give you something that looks like an XLS from a distance but performs much better. And it's kind of authentic, every original XLS I bought for the collection had the Procat suspension fitted to it.