Amen.

-YL

i like the cast iron effect on the turret. much more subtle than the Trumpeter IS-3M that i just bought. i'm certainly going to get one.

is there any idea on how much the kit will cost?

My guess would be anywhere in 40-60 USD range, but, after Stevens Int. slapped ~$80 MSRP on upcoming MLTV, this one may go for triple digit tag once it pops up in hobby shops.

Anyone want to bet how long until Steven's goes "Chapter 11" and Trumpeter finds a new importer? I give Steven's until April...

Guess I will be looking into buying my kits from Asia and skipping the middle man on this...

Prices have become pretty crazy. I remember last winter there was the first anouncement of a 20% increase from Stevens, and that took effect in April I believe. Since then there has been at least one other increase that I am aware of. Oil prices seem to have been the blame then....of course OIL is cheap again. Will we see the prices come down? I think that is very unlikely. I also heard somewhere that Trumpeter was forcing Stevens to raise the price because of the increases imposed in the EU. I'm not certain how true that is, but oh well, we are still seeing the prices increase.

I don't see how this can continue. Labor and manufacturing in China is so much cheaper than here or Japan. The profit margins must be very high for Trumpeter. Stevens discount to vendors is 40%. My guess is their cut must be about 20-25% and that leave the rest for Trumpeter.

Venodrs can probably discount some, but they still have to stay alive....especially the hobby shops.

Anything over $50 for the T-62 is too much. I'll probably pay for it just to have a decent T-62, but I won't look to buy more than one. The Dragon M1A1 AIM and A2 SEP kits are worth $50 easily, I just don't think this T-62 will have more to offer than those two.

I seriously believe that either prices will fall due to lack of sales or else Steven's will go belly up. I do not believe that Trumpeter is forcing ANYTHING on importers. Trumpeter is producing kits that sell well in the ASIAN market...Europe and the America's are just a side benefit...in fact, Europe is an even smaller market than the US alone. I doubt Trumpeter cares about price parity for outside markets.

I have been dealing with importers for a LOT of products, not just models, and ALL of them have pushed as big of increases as they can. Now they are starting to have to make massive discounts because stock is not moving and sales are dropping, as much as 80%. Most of my work is in the scientific field, so it is vastly different than models. An example is scale calibration weights. MSRP on a 1kg weight from a normal source was $129.99 and I found the SAME weight, from a US source, for $29.99. A lot of importers expect to have BIG margins, especially when they "corner the market" like Stevens. I am sure they have their own bills to pay, but I think they are trying to pass TOO much onto the consumer. We will see how the first half of 2009 goes down...

wow, US$40-$60??? thats gotta be at least AU$50-$70. i'm 17 with a weekend job and a car to pay off, so i cant afford that.

dang. aah well, it'll be Trumpeter and Italeri kits for me for a while. lol

I couldn't agree with you more Jacques. I build Aircraft as well and on a trip to Kiev purhased an Amodel IL-76 in 1/72 scale. I paid about $105 US for the kit. I checked Stevens stock and their reported retail was over $325 for the same kit. If they actually sold any of those, they were making one hell of a profit.

Yep, that's right.

By the way how's that Amodel kit ? I had a An-71 Awacs still half build for almost a year...

I guess this global economic meltdown will affect most of the modeling companies too... wait and see..

Well, the IL-76 kit is a unique one. It is mixed media with injection and Resin-Fiberglass. It comes with a complete interior with a fair amount of room for scratch building to boot.

It is by far one of the most difficult kits I have ever attempted. I had to take a break from it and work on my Trump 1/32 Flanker with loads of aftermarket.

When I left off on the IL76 I was puttying/sanding/puttying/sanding.......the clear glass nose area of the forward fuselage. It needs alot of filling, and after about 4 hours of it, I decided to shelve it for awhile. The main fuselage is hollow Resin-Fiberglass with good detail. The wings are each solid resin fiberglass as well.

I feel that it will certainly attract a lot of attention on any display, and once I finish it, I'll need to find some room for it. It is quite large. So, I have a IL76 about 1/4 built for now. But, I'll get back at it probably this winter.

Here's a link to a walkaround showing the fuel cells:
http://walkarounds.airforce.ru/armour/index.htm

http://pblinov.narod.ru/aksay/aksay.html

It seems like the Trumpeter kit is partly based on the T-62 in the Littlefield collection (which has non standard fuel cells).

http://svsm.org/gallery/T-62