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The people who would buy civilian vehicle models are probably going to be turned off by the complexity of a state of the art kit. They like vehicles, they are not modelers.
KL

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Kurt - you seem to use a very broad brush in regards to "civilian" vehicle modellers. Any basis on which you can substantiate your claim that they are not modellers!.

I've got a small line of detail parts on Shapeways for Emergency Vehicles in 1/24 scale. It took off quicker than I thought in under a month. Yes it's a very small market, but a good chunk of the builders want ever possible detail to be correct.

At the same time some of the 1/35 scale stuff I've done hasn't sold much at all. As of yesterday the ratio is almost 20:1.

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The people who would buy civilian vehicle models are probably going to be turned off by the complexity of a state of the art kit. They like vehicles, they are not modelers.
KL

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Kurt - you seem to use a very broad brush in regards to "civilian" vehicle modellers. Any basis on which you can substantiate your claim that they are not modellers!.

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That's relatively easy to do.

- If there is such a large market for civilian construction vehicles (which is what this thread is about), why hasn't it been addressed? It's hard to argue that model companies completely incompetent with regards to marketing.

- Automobile models were big years before armor models were. The variety of vehicles available was staggering. There were plenty of opportunities to develop kits of construction vehicles if the market warranted it.

- Some have claimed that the popularity of die cast construction vehicles indicates that people would buy plastic kits of the same subjects. Die cast vehicles aren't kits. They do not require any effort on the part of the purchaser.

- Compare the complexity of recent 1/24 and 1/25 automobile kits to recent 1/35 tank kits. I think you'll agree that the difference is daunting. For example, Revell considers a complex car kit like their 2010 Ford Shelby GT500 is Skill Level 3, but their run-of-the mill M48A2/A2C tank kit is considered SL 4 and their SpPz Luchs 2 is SL 5.

- Many modern aircraft modelers are turned off by the complexity of tank kits. Heck, many armor modelers are turned off by state of the art kits.

KL

As Caterpillar/Cat hold the world-wide patent on the 'high-track' system then Meng's offering (combined with the use of 'D9') can only lead to the conclusion it is a replica of a Caterpillar/Cat product and as Caterpillar/Cat zealously guard their brand name it was a given that legal action was to happen as it will with the recently released 'D7's'.
As much as I would love to see Engineering equipment produced in plastic I sincerely doubt there will be much progress in this area due entirely to the licensing/royalties mind-set of these large corporations.

Better known as Scrapers, mostly used to move dirt/clay to and fro:
modern scrapers
That would be great if they do!

Jim