it's unfortunate that ever since ep touring cars became popular pan cars have been pushed to the sidelines. the decreasing popularity has meant that the 1/10 pan cars class has been dropped from the ifmar onroad world champs just held recently.
i have a sp12g3 second hand which i bought recently. i have driven it at marina south and it was pretty fun, even though it was just a 27turn stock. i do not think i'll play it at yuan ching as the track is too rough for it.
you're right in that LHS will not bring in pan cars as there's hardly any market potential left. the LHS seem only interested in 1/10 gp nowadays. sigh.
btw, the sp12m comes in fiberglass or graphite versions, which explains why there may price differences.