RC10Talk - The Net's Largest Vintage R/C Community

i know that we all get surprised when we see the ending prices of some of these kits. but if you really think about it, to piece a car together from nothing costs a ton of money, too. let's say you wanted to build a rc10 tub team car with all new white parts relying on ebay as your source for the parts......... the ones you can't just go to tower and buy. we've all seen the ending prices of white parts, especially the ones that don't come around too often. hell, unless your lucky, you could easily have $125+ just in the new tub, noseplate, and motor plate. it costs almost $100 or so to build a complete stealth, and that doesn't include the $35+ i've seen white trans cases fetch. oh, and don't forget the $15+ i've seen those little motor plate spacers go for. $40 bulkhead, $40 front arms, $15 front arm mount, $10 castor blocks, $20 rear arm mounts, $30 rear arms, $15 hub carriers, $60 in shocks, $30 rims, $50+ for tires, etc etc etc. then all of the hardware...... screws, nuts, washers, ball studs, hinge pins, blah blah blah. that little crap adds up quick.

so just adding up the numbers i threw out there as examples, the cost is $585, and the car isn't even finished yet. there still a bunch of expensive white stuff to locate and buy.

and think, if you'd just buy the kit, you'd get the box, too.

To get any true vintage RC10 NIB would be a cream dream! None of my RC10s hold a candle to some of the vintage rides I've seen on here. They've all been butchered over the years. They all run great, but some you would barely know they were an Associated. If I were single I would be more than willing to go $1200 if it still had the original factory seal. Besides, like you said, waiting for all the right parts in the right condition just takes too long.

it does suck trying to gather the nip white parts. it took me over a year and a half to find the ones to complete my 6010 kit. and i had like half of them already.

I'll second that estimate scr8p, just completed a build up from scratch of a 1989 graphite car and am currently working on a 1994 worlds car minus the chassis which I hope to find someday but in the meantime will go with a new black tub. In the case of the graphite I would perhaps have saved if I bought a nib kit but would have had a hard time hiding the large onetime payout from you know who(I know this qualifies on Doug's list of addictive behavior patterns). In the case of the worlds car I should be money ahead even after I find a correct new chassis because I believe the last kit sold for anywhere from a $1000 to $1200 if I remember correctly. I'm really happy with the graphite as I was able to find all the hard to find goodies from the people(scr8p included) on the forum and Ebay.

oh, ya. for most people, it's tough to drop that lump sum to purchase the kit. so although it may take some time, you'd need to build it piece by piece.

but the other thing is would you be willing to spend the money to buy a NIB........ and then open it. especially if it was still sealed. if i was able to buy a nib kit.... the box is opened but all of the parts are still packaged up.... i would build it. still sealed? i don't know if i could.

Personally, I would never open it. Hah! I can hear me trying to explain that to my wife...

"Honey, I bought a 25 year old r/c car for $1200."
"YOU DID WHAT!!?"
"Oh, and by the way, I'm never going to open it."
There would be no more words from her because I wouldn't be able to hear her through the front door...

See, I figure that I have spent that much so far on rebuilding the kits I wanted. The wife doesn't really know how much as it comes in parts. Now if I did it right I would buy a NIB and then simply ask her where she wants to mail the divorce papers too!!!

I think part of the reason not to drop $1200 at once is the thrill of the hunt. I can't tell you how many times I've dropped into a little hobby shop and purchased 75% of their rc10 stock. I haven't found any holy grails, but plenty of white and black parts, a few RPM peices here and there and several nose and motor plates.

RichieRich wrote:I can't tell you how many times I've dropped into a little hobby shop and purchased 75% of their rc10 stock. I haven't found any holy grails, but plenty of white and black parts, a few RPM peices here and there and several nose and motor plates.

oh ya, i know. but that's why i said in my original post about ebay being your source for the white parts. we all have lhs's that we've clean out of old parts, or bought/traded with members here and other sites for part we needed. which helps keep the price down. but if you had to rely solely on ebay, building a car with all new white parts would cost a lot of money.

I just bought and stripped three JRX2's and built one 'nice' car outta the parts.
Cost? US$80 for one car,US$20 for the second and US$30 for the third.
The car looks okay,but still needs work.
I guess I should have saved up for a NIB kit,but I really like restoring these older cars!
Can you put a price on the enjoyment in restoring the car and a price on the great satisfaction one feels when it's completed and looks like new
I still have enough parts to build a cool 5-link brushless beater,too...

5.00 here, 10.00 there, 7.50 over there..... Shipping adds up fast too!!!

all this talk about NIB parts. A jrx-pro body and sticker set just popped up on the bay. It got me thinking. I am fixin' to build a nice pro and have aquired most of the parts NIB except the above and wheels. Adding up what I have spent so far, and what those are going to go for, maybe I would be better off throwing an offer up on the sealed kit that is again listed, and sell off my near complete parts stash for that project individually. . .
Then again, Who am I kidding, I would wind up buying the kit, and building something else with the parts.

bit ( well, perhaps a lot) off topic: what confuses me is people buying cars to replace every single part by a nip one... what did they need to buy the car for in the first place then?
Aside of this, about the costs of building from NIP; it seems people forget what it really costs them in paypall fees, ebay fees,handling fees, gas, shipments but most important: time to search ebay, finish the dealing, drive aound for scorching the shops... I know, it 's your spare time and it's "fun" but if we're gonna compare NIB against collected NIP, well you should take this in account aswell NIP is both more "fun" and higher cost

I would love to get a NIB RC10 but you can just never get hold of them

ThomasH wrote:I would love to get a NIB RC10 but you can just never get hold of them

There is one on ebay right now