Red Fox - Hot Trick Repro - RC Lohas

[shirochanwrx]

I just want to be clear that this is all good natured ... I mean, we didn't respect one another's opinions, I think that we would all find a better use of our time.

I bang these posts out as fast as I can, so they are probably longer than they would be if they were edited...

I'm sure that this has been covered elsewhere, but ...

... in my hiatus since the early '90s, the development of LiPo batteries, brushless motors, 2.4G radios, overseas production practices, and (unfortunately) the RTR industry have totally changed the R/C hobby for better and (in the case of RTR) worse.

Similarly, the explosion of message boards, eBay, and reproduction products have changed the vintage and "retro" market too, also for better and (in the case of reproduction products passed off as original) worse.

Intellectual property, the notion of "autheticity", the impact of an "instant gratification"-driven society, and the implications of globalization are all crystallized (to some degree) in how people feel about and approach this hobby.

And all without speaking about politics. Except for the people who do.

It keeps me coming back to look at y'all's posts. That and the B/S/T posts. Which I need to stop checking for the next 5 months or so.

[shirochanwrx]

See, I actually agree with *most* of what 'Army has to say, and certainly with most of his (people who know you better have been referring to you as "he") conclusions. I get to them in somewhat different ways, and I think that it is interesting to talk about the reasoning because it gives me the opportunity to change the way *I* think. I'm not really into changing other people's opinions, but I do like to state mine as clearly as possible so people can point out errors and inconsistencies.

For example: 'Army went to the trouble of making the functional distinction between "vintage" and "retro" more clear (at least in an R/C sense) for me in a separate post. It makes it possible to talk about these things more clearly.

'Army: I was including quotes from earlier in the thread because it makes it easier to read, not because I was trying to deconstruct your comments on a semantic basis ... saying that this is "grade school" stuff or that I have "no other leg to stand on" except criticizing your grammar is pretty dismissive, dude.

I mean, I normally speak/write in strings of expletives with lots of punctuation, which actually softens the tone a little, but I'm trying to be civil (and not banned) ... and maybe it is having the effect of making me sound like a *insert expletive of choice here* (I was thinking of one that starts with "d").

Plus I don't use emoticons, which sometimes makes posts read like a newspaper. Or a credit card bill. Or a summons.

So ... I'll try and be a little more chill. I ain't dismissing or disrespecting anyone, or at least not yet. It's usually not subtle.

The problem is that I drink a little less than 2 pots of coffee a day and average 4.5 - 5.5 hours sleep/night, so I'm wound up pretty tight. I'll try and keep an eye on my tone, though.

[kaiser]

Now might be a good time to mention the fact that I never have been a fan of Hot Trick parts to begin with.

+1

I never understood why hot trick was popular back in the day. the stuff rarely made a car perform better.

i remember a friend who got a bunch of hot trick parts for his fox. he said that hot trick meant "it looks HOT but the TRICK is they don't work well and break easily".
i got a kick out of that.

my .02 about repros is that with out them it would be difficult and expensive to restore some models without them. i think the only repro i have at the moment is a jrx2 body, that cracked the moment i mounted it. lol i guess it's a double edged sword.

[mrlexan]

i think the only repro i have at the moment is a jrx2 body, that cracked the moment i mounted it. lol i guess it's a double edged sword.

From who?

[kaiser]

obviously not you. lol

i got it from erich right before last years vonats, the nose (where the body mount post sticks trough) seemed to react with the paint.
it had hairline cracking while the paint dried.

[mrlexan]

Just wanted to make sure or make it right.

[Brandon G]

Wow, long thread.

I guess my question is: If they anodized the aluminum blue instead of red, would they call it Icy Hot Trick? Or just Cold Trick?

That's all I really have to add.

[mrlexan]

Cold Trick?

That's all I really have to add.

[Charlie don't surf]

With my Shelby, should it ever get restored the same day I build my first RC10

Stop being serious for a moment... no comment about the above Scr8p?

what? i had to take a leak.

so what your saying is.... that mustang will never make the trip to PA. am i pickin' up what you're puttin' down?

It would have a much better chance if someone would pick up the phone

[emerson_shih]

It is great to see some discussion here. Let me talk about the back ground about those re-re product.
I'm a Hot trick fan, and also a vintage RC buggy fan. I collect around 60 vintage buggies. And during the progress of collecting my favorit buggies, it is so challenge for me to find complete Hot trick kit. I know the red kit is not in everyones style, but back to the days, when I was still a child, there are not many R/C buggies in the market, I even can't offer a Hotshot kit, then the Hot trick conversion kit is only a dream for the children like me. Now, I have the capability to offer it, but Hot trick is gone. It only stays in my dream. I know unless I find an OEM to re-produce it, I will never have chance to complete my dream.
And I agree, if someone said it was coping the vintage brand. Unless you have chance to own them both, you will never know how many improvings were done in these re-re product. And unless you are joining in us, you will never know how small of the market is. Who is willing to copy a product in such small market? I mean 10~30 sets in total. Do you know how big effort we did to integrate so many different parts and resource?
However, I'm not trying to convince anyone to purchase it. As I said, I'm a Hot trick fans, I'm personally very happy to have them back, even I lost huge money for producing those kits. And I plan to stop these stupid business now, because I have no more money to burn for this dreams. That is why I release the Red Fox without completing the manual, since I can not offer the drawing & printing anymore.

PS: Do you really agree I'm copying tecnacraft rim? Haha....try to purchase one and find the truth.

[murphy3428]

I am a big Tecnacraft fan and really didn't want to see them reproduced,but I feel that the direction emerson took on his NEW wheels is the right direction. The one thing with tecnacraft wheels is that there was so few designs it allows alot of room to add new wheel designs without reproducing the old styles.I have not seen the wheels in person so I can't make a comment on the quality but I do think lohas will do well with there new wheels.

[tiger1]

This is being taken too seriously. These are hobby cars after all

[MelvinsArmy]

This is being taken too seriously. These are hobby cars after all

A hobby kind of like collecting autographs is a hobby? Or maybe more like collecting antiques? Yeah, authenticity is perfectly worthless.

[Zipster]

I think that is the crux of the question, is this a collecting hobby, or is it a broader hobby around the love of old rc cars. In the 1:1 classic world there are similar issues, but it's a much bigger world (in several ways ), so there are separate groups for people who are only into unrestored original cars, restored cars, vintage racers (heck, just in that there are separate organizations for "how vintage" the members want to be), hot rods, etc...

Here, we are kind of all mixed together, the guys (or women?) who want to restore cars originally to exactly how they came out of the box, guys who want them still in the box, guys who want to have the most unique, esoteric and unobtainable cars, to guys just want to play around with the cars they couldn't afford as kids, and never would have had them stay the way they came out of the package back then. In reality, most people here seem to fall someplace in the middle, building runners and shelfers to various levels of extremity.

I personally feel that this "hobby" is clearly, and needs to stay, bigger than just collecting. If you measure this by collecting standards, Melvin's Army is 100% correct, reproductions damage the hobby and have no value. If you look at it from my personal perspective (I'm no collector, and haven never really understood collecting, beyond having a bunch of stuff to play with), reproduction parts are a huge value, because I want to drive the cars as close to the way they were intended, and customize them the way I dreamed of then (ok, and now!), and having cheap(er) parts easily available helps me to do that. As I don't place a lot of personal importance on provenance, originality or exclusivity (if I had the original Jay Halsey 1985 winner, I'd happily trade it to one of you for a cool regular car )

Also, my belief (based on watching the 1:1 vintage world) is that if this is just a collecting hobby it will die a slow death - these cars are not universally coveted - heck most people I know that know I'm into RC think I'm a geek and that it's embarrasing for a grown man to play with toys ) - therefore when a certain demographic, with a sweet spot of being pre/early teens in the mid 80s-mid 90s gets old, who will ever care again, and all of our time and effort will be wasted (look at the demand for pre WW2 classic cars). I think the availability of Tamiya re-res has done more to get people thinking about vintage rc (myself included), which might even keep it going.

So my (long winded) perspective is that overall, I think the reproduction cars parts are a positive thing (and could well become collectible in a few years (has anyone tried to find a rere Tamiya Dyna Storm recently?), but it would be ideal if an expert can visually tell the difference between the originals and the reproductions.

Sorry for wasting so many bits & bytes, but I've been following this for a while now, and think that the core issue just comes from what the different groups in this forum get out of vintage rc.

Hasta,
Sten

[MelvinsArmy]

I've never viewed this hobby as a "collector-only" hobby. Not by any means. As for my own collection, the only cars that are never run are my minty 6010 (which has been run in the past) and the Fox that I bought in 1987, ran the living snot out of for years and then a couple years ago was put back together and retired to the shelf. That's it.

As I've said before, if your reasoning is that you need new parts to run your vintage cars, there is no reason not to have some bit of difference between the new part and the old. A small but easily ID'd difference is not going to change your driving experience. An identical reproduction is going to change everything for someone who wants to collect geniune old school parts.