Originally Posted by moonman
But why have some of your sponsored drivers been seen driving an other manufacturers car in testing then? For sure he would drive a TC5 prototype if he had one.
At the beginning of the development of ANY new car, manufacturers 'test' other vehicles to see what's up, check 'em out, have something to shoot for. At that time, it's possible a top level driver gives the car a go, but that is not the standard. If the designer is a driver, most likely HE will be the one driving the car....for the 'rumor' reasons you've described.
Now, car is in the prototype stages. There is NO reason a sponsored driver should be driving a competitors car...none. If he gets a prototype, why WOULD he drive one? If he doesn't, we still offer another vehicle he can drive (in this case, the FT TC4). Sure, it may not be up to snuff with the current crop of cars, but in due time we will have a winning vehicle out there. So, if there IS a sponsored driver doing this, he shouldn't be.
Of course it have to be ready before you start selling it. Only one problem, how can you afford not to have a touring car for sale. As you said sometime ago noone want to buy the TC4 anymore. The development on TC5 should have started much earlier. The evolution of racing cars is ongoing.
We can afford not to have one because we are still developing one. People expect perfection from us, or as close as possible. If it's junk out of the box, we won't be selling it ANYWAY.
-Tamiya 415 came out february 2004
-Tamiya 415MS out in november 2004
-Tamiya 415MSX out in november 2005
-Tamiya 415MSX MR limited edition september 2006
-Tamiya 415 MSXX will be out march 2007
You have to remember something, overseas market (read: asian markets) THRIVE on new, constant products. US markets don't. Yokomo used to come out with a new vehicle every 6 months or so. Asian markets LOVED it. US didn't. Yokomo is not very popular in the US anymore because of that. In return, AE is not very popular in Japan because 'we don't have new products as fast as Yokomo'. Tamiya follows the same theories.... Not to mention, doesn't it piss you off to have to buy (if you want to keep up) 5 cars in 2 years?????? Or, in 2 years you could have ONE new car that is still winning.
It will be intersting to see what approach Associated will take on the TC5.
The future will tell if Associated will experience the glory days of TC3 time again.
Which brings us up to the next point. At the time of the TC3, how many other companies were out there running TC???? 1 or 2 (good ones)? How many are there now???? Let's see...
- Losi
- Yokomo
- Corally
- XRay
- Hot Bodies
- HPI
- Tamiya
- Kyosho
And those are just off the top of my head....and ALL of those companies have stepped up the game to make super-competitive racing machines.
Yes, we realize that we made a bit of a mistake with the FT TC4. But now, we have to make something equal or BETTER than at LEAST 8 different companies. And, each of those has a pretty solid team backing them.
Quite the difficult market to get into, now that we are a little late. One reason the designer is doing his best to make sure this thing is THAT good....he has a lot of design and manufacture time invested.
It'll be good. It'll be fast. It'll be typical Associated.