White kits... here we go.

[Dave Kennedy]

I discuss some experiences I've had with selling white slot car kits. It's mixed at best. The SCX blister packed body sold well, most other white kits I've seen in the business have not.

[vtecfour]

Hi Dave,

Interesting. My white kit purchases have largely been Scalextric ones over the years and I've noticed that recent ones haven't been priced any less than fully painted and tampoed versions.

Seems to make sense if in Scalextric's situation it doesn't reduce production cost much.

Thanks for the insider view.

Dan

[HomeRacingWorld]

My favorite part: "When a guy says...everyone I know would buy them"

LOL

But they don't. Not even the person saying it.

The amount of custom repaints I see are few and far between. In the bigger picture, the ones that do, know they do NOT need a white kit to make a custom car.

Sure, stripping a regular car has one more step...BUT if that modeler REALLY wants that car, they will do it. They also know a white kit does NOT mean just shoot paint on it. You still have to prep and primer the body.

The fact that the cost is not much different production wise is likely the best part. People assuming it should be cheaper because its not painted. Very well put.

[War Eagle River]

Harry, my sediments exactly! If someone really wants a certain car, they will do the steps necessary to achieve it. Case in point, our recent discussion on the you know what!

[Slotspeed]

I would love to buy more cars but the truth for my current stage of life is that there are other priorities, I've had my eye on a 917K NSR white kit for months but with 4 kids under 10 and not much time I have only bought one car this year, and even an NSR white kit was out of my price range though I almost did buy one. There would be a lot of people who would spend more on their hobbies if they could.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

This is what I know from experience...
The difference between painted and white kits for Fly in the old days was about 2/3s, and I bought loads of them. I recently finished the last one, a Lola T70. The Fly kits were superior, cheaper, and offered the builder the opportunity to make an already perfected slot car, which was kind of a victory for us Fly Fixers. Scaley white kits had a crazy amount of clear finish on them, so they still had to be stripped, plus, they cost very little less than the painted car. MB Slot had amazing detail, and they were very fast, but zero clue about what went where on the body. Slot.it had the same flaw, but even without instructions, they were much easier to put together. The truth is, if the white kits cost as much as painted, they are useless, and I suspect that manufacturers aren't so stupid as to mistakenly raise the price during a period when all slot cars cost far more than they should, which has hurt the hobby terribly. Without exception, everyone I know, online on in person, who sold out and quit the hobby, did so because in the last 10-12 years, the cost of RTR became downright insulting. In 2008, we laughed at guys who spent $80-$100 for a RTR car. The quality didn't improve, they just got faster, which is completely unnecessary.

That's what I have seen. Attack as your guns bear.

[Austin]

I do love the base color and around the windows, The cars come out so much better for me.

[Fathead59]

I am not sure if this is in the same vein of the post , but I have bought cars off of the Bay and stripped them down to repaint , basically turning them into white kits . I still feel that if the manufactures would make a white kit along with the pre-painted car , they can see which sells . I do not mean as many as the pre-painted ones , maybe a handful .

[Broman62]

Excellent video Dave...keep up the great work...it is much needed!!!

[Fathead59]

Too bad the manufacturer can't offer a choice of paint schemes , something like a COPO they used to do for 1 to 1 cars back in the day . For a little extra money the company can paint it for you , maybe even have different gear and motor choices . Just a thought here guys . I know that most of us here do are own work on the cars we buy and race

[lance]

Another great video Dave. I haven"t seen the white kits you show. I have 2 of the SCX nascar body kits but they have 2 liveries,, not white no chassis . That SCX white kit was a good idea and sold at a great price. Also the SCX chassis ran pretty good.
The Carrera white car had a disadvantage as it was digital and cost more for the digital stuff, Someone wanting a white body to paint, would not spend more money for the digital stuff he wasn"t going to use. Probably would have sold better if it was analog.
How did the scalextric white nascar sell? They had a pro nascar kit with 3 motors, couple of pinions and crown gears. but it had issues, it had 3mm axels, so the wheels, crown gears couldn"t be used on anything else.
I think slot car manufactures like slot it, nsr and scale auto can make white kits work, Toy manufactures can"t get rid of the stock.

[Dave Kennedy]

Even the hobby brands sell white kits in VERY small numbers. The Pro Nascar stuff that Scalextric made years ago didn't sell well. Kits don't sell very well, they sell in much smaller numbers than painted kits... for EVERY brand.

[dinglebery]

Nice video Dave. Again, thanks for the hobby insight! I think how well a kit sells is directly related to how popular a particular car is. I will never buy anything Nascar because I don't like them, for instance. Dave, how about doing a video on the most popular cars. No 1 is probably the Porsche 917K in Gulf livery.

[BiggusMikus]

A few of the online shops I shop from here in Germany sell white kits, and they're on average about 10 euro less than painted ones. Slot.it white kits, for example, sell at around 40, where a painted car would cost 50.

It kinda sounds tempting, but I guarantee by the time I finished with it it would be the ugliest car on my track, regardless of the livery I try to put on it.

I liked the video, Dave. I like all your videos. Informative from a different standpoint.

[downtowndeco]

A couple points. First, I really enjoy the video series, well done. Fun to watch & informative.

As far as hobbyists "saving money" by buying white kits, I just don't see it. For each paint scheme they need to buy at least one, perhaps 2 or more colors of paint for the bodies + the decals, and that doesn't even count the time it takes. Now, I've done custom paint jobs and decals and enjoyed creating something unique, but I didn't do it to save money. I did it because I enjoyed doing it, which is a fine reason, but I'm not going to kid myself that it was "cheaper".

On a side but related, I manufacture building kits for the model train guys. There are 6 or 7 different "main" scales, with HO, N & O being the most popular. Occasionally I will dip a toe in another scale, to "test" the market. I've done this in Z, S & G scales. Each time the hobbyists in those scales told me "If only you made kits in our scale, we'd buy them up!" So I'd do a kit or two, and sales would be mediocre at best. "Too big, too small, wrong railroad, wrong era....etc etc etc'. It's all good, I'm glad I tried to break into those markets and I may do some more of that in the future. But often what the customers SAY and what they actually DO are two entirely different things.

[noddaz]

Thank you Dave for that video! And yes, I realize that people that want to paint their own slot cars is a small sub-group of the sub-group of people that race slot cars. And I know that next to pre-painted slot cars bodies in white are VERY plain and not appealing. But thanks for bursting my bubble anyway! BTW, I will take that new whatever it is as a white kit because everyone will want one! I read it on the internet so it must be true!