Real Talk: Scale vs Sales

[Dave Kennedy]

This video discusses the truth of what market is bigger, the hobbyist market or the mass market especially regarding scale and what scale sells best.

[mattb]

Kind of what we all know, but not what we want to hear!!

thanks Dave

[slothead]

This makes perfect sense to me. When I got my first Strombeck track for Christmas back in the early 60's there weren't big box mass market retailers like today. In upstate NY it was Montgomery Wards or Sears and we did our Christmas shopping from the catalog more than in store. By age 7 or so I was already very much into cars and knew about Corvettes, Ferraris, and Jaguars which were in my first sets. But, there weren't any Bugs Bunny, Yogi Bear, or similar themed cars to distract me either.

I would have loved a Batman race set, but the TV show didn't come on till 1966 when I was a little older and also following Ford's racing adventures.

For those of us who care about the slot car hobby from a racing enthusiasts point of view the best thing we can do is vote for what we want with our dollars. That's why I've always said Pioneer cars are worth what they cost as reliable well performing accurate replicas of real cars. After seeing the #1 Jim Hall Camaro in a hobby shop I was hooked, and now have just about every Trans Am car they made. I'm now doing the same with their Legend cars because I appreciate their investment in another class of race cars I can have fun with at home.

[Dave Kennedy]

I have a similar story and fond memories of looking at the Sears "Wish Book" for hours, hoping that I'd get a slot car set when I was little.
And I agree the smaller companies like Pioneer are the heart of the hobby. Lead by people that actually care are slot cars as an idea, not only as a commodity.