Tamiya's plastic has been the same for years. What looks so cheap about the plastic on this car?:confused: Any one who has ever had a Tamiya kit has no doubts about the quality of Tamiya's stuff.

But if Tamiya's history of high quality kits doesn't reassure you, I would be willing to bet that there will be more that enough hop ups for this car!:D I'm sure there will be a upper and lower graphite deck for the car. If not from Tamiya, from somebody.

so has anyone got any new info on this yet?? has it been released yet!!!

The F201 is cool, without a doubt, but I will miss passing sedans on the straightaways with my silver can powered F103. Finesse over brute force!

I would expect to see people driving different lines from the f103 with this car since its 4wd.

F1 + 4WD = powersliding F1s rally style!!:eek:

dynolab: The arrival date that I was given by my LHS is the 15th. So if it amazingly comes when its supposed to, then I'll be able to pick it up tomorrow!:D

But, I'm also a video gamer, so I don't put much stock in release and arrival dates! I've seen to many of them come and go with no results:ha:

But, the car should hit hobbyshops tomorrow. If not then, soon.

Potato: The car looks to weigh in the same as a really light TC. So the days of blowing by TC with the silver can are definately gone!;)

I will however give the included actopower motor a shot and see how it does...............before I strap in the ChameleonPro!!!:cool: :sneaky: :ha:

Do any one of you think tamiya will release a new pan car using the f201's chassis? Maybe widen the chassis a bit for extra space for the electronics? the width is already 200mm, i think you can make a pan car or a touring out of it.

I don't see why they would. Tamiya has never really been into the pan car scene. And since whats left of the 1/10th pan car scene is pretty much drying up, I don't see the financial benefit of doing something like that either.

Tamiya also has its own TC already, so I don't see why they would go down that road either.

I think this chassis will be F1 Exclusive for the most part.

FYI... price drop.
Tower / Omni lowered the price on the F201 from $189 to $174.
If you have pre-ordered. you can call for price adjustment. Should be arriving any day now. :)

Yeah, I noticed that. The funny thing is that my LHS already had the price at about that in the first place. I don't know why Tower started so high anyway.

Has anyone gotten a confirmation of shipment yet? Tamiya America was supposed to start shipping F201's today.

No confirmation here yet. Tamiya isn't very forth coming with info are they?:( Why have a website if you aren't going to use it?

Tamiya, throw me a frickin' bone here!:D

Latest F201 specs
 

Fred at Tamiya America posted the following in the Tamiya TRF club at Yahoo regarding specs on the new F201:

"So you guys are aware I will be giving you more detailed info on the
new F201 chassis. I know some of you will whine, but bare in mind
that there will be option parts to follow. Here goes:
The ball diff assembly goes together just like the one from the TA-
04.Not like a TB as previously thought.
The F201 does have two center shafts that make up the center drive
train.
The car has oil filled shocks, but the pistons have no holes in them.
(future option part)
The chassis only accomodates stick packs for now.
Full ball bearings.
The bottom plastic chassis is contersunk.
The gear ratio is non-adjustable.
The motor mount is plastic.
The gear pitch is 48 ptitch metric."

Before I rant like I did on Yahoo in reaction to this, a good source who works for a Tamiya-only hobby shop doesn't expect American shops to have the F201 for another 4-6 weeks.

Now for the rant:
1) No-hole pistons? How is dampening done?
2) Non-adjustable gear ratio with plastic motor mount? Sound familiar?
Is anyone else tired of this old-fashioned manufacturing? Is anyone else tired of spending double or triple the initial kit price to build a race-worthy car? Yeah, there will be hop ups galore to be sure.
Bend over and open your wallet boys, Tamiya is reaming you again.

Coolrcdad: thanks for the info on the car.

The damping will work like this. THe pistons will be slightly smaller that the diameter of the shocks. This way the oil will pass by the outsides of the piston, thus providing damping.

I'm not too concerned about the plastic motor mount for now. The aluminum one with gear adjustments should have been included though.

I'm not too happy about the stick pack only thing. Tamiya needs to cut that crap out.

That not availible for another "4-6weeks" thing is going to come as a big surprise to all the distributors who have listed Mid-March as the ship date.

We'll wait and see, but I'll take the distributors word for it right now.

I really don't mind the hop ups, I knew they were coming anyway, so it shouldn't surprise anyone.

From what I was told, the mid-March date was when the production kits begin rolling off the assembly line for japanese distributors, and there is a lag before they come stateside. This is from a shop that is one of the first to get new stuff in the US. Anyway, I'm in no hurry.

I've been a Tamiya fan and builder for a long time. I'd like to see more kits like the TA04R, which contain most of the essential hop ups for a reasonable price and were released soon after the first 04. I have poured a lot of money into my M03, TA04 Pro, F103rx and TB01 to make them more race worthy. This is how Tamiya makes money.

Then there's the performance. Tamiya's best sedan, the 414M, can't compete with TC3s and others. I've seen it.