I've had a lot of Associated vehicles. On road and off road. These kits have never let me down. I just bought the TC 6.1 World's Car. It's awesome. If you go to the Associated website, you can get the 6.1 Factory Team which is almost as good, for $250. If I had seen that deal before I bought my World's Car, I'd have jumped on that for sure! I thought about getting one just to have it, since it's such a good deal.
No matter where you go, Associated has great support. Any hobby shop I've ever seen, carries Associated parts. I have lived in and raced in Oklahoma, Texas, New Jersey and now Alaska. Having parts readily available is huge! All of the hobby shops in all of those places carry tons of Associated parts. It's especially important for me here in Alaska where it costs more to have things shipped here and it takes a lot longer too. You'd be hard pressed to get me to buy anything other than Associated.