# Price of model cars ?



## z06 (Jun 22, 2007)

Stopped into the local hobby shop today and a modal car was $35.00 on average. Is this a lot, or am I out of touch ? I haven't built a car in about 20 years. This is one of the last ones I built with my son. I bought this base car for about $10.00 and still have it in my rec room.


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## Tuxedo (Dec 14, 2011)

Yep, they are getting expensive these days. I got out of the Hobby in the mid 90's for that and other reasons. However you can find better prices online if you shop around


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

$35 is high. Most Revell and AMT kits are in the $18-$24 range. Race car kits may cost more because of the exorbitant licensing NASCAR requires. That always adds a good $5-$10 to a kit. But, you can get cars at places like Hobby Lobby that have 40% off coupons, and that takes the price down a lot. It really depends on where you shop. 

For what it's worth, when I started working in the mid 80s, model car kits hit $10. At the time, minimum wage was $3.35 an hour! So, I had to work 3 hours to get the money to buy a $10 car.

Today, minimum wage is $8 to $15 an hour and a car kit is $18 - $24. Now you only have to work 2 hours to buy the same kit, or 3 if you have a lower minimum wage. Stuff costs more today, but we have more money too. It's all relative. When kits were cheaper we earned less. Yeah stuff cost less but you had less money.


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## irishtrek (Sep 17, 2005)

Back in the late 60s early 70s car models from MPC were 2.25 and the Fred Meyer store chain always had them for between 1.50 and 2.00 dollars.


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## finaprint (Jan 29, 2006)

The ratio to pay has changed (at least here) a bit. I went to work anywhere for $2.10/hr. back in '72 and the jobs were plentiful enough (entry level printer) that you could literally pick the one place you wanted to work and fill out one application only and they would call you in 2-3 months almost 100% guaranteed. I did it several time through the seventies to work up a resume. 

Try doing that now, even if you are young and fit and have a good skillset to sell.

While the current $8-$15 pay bracket is close, a whole lot less people percentage wise here now can approach the $15 end of it. I would say here more like $12 as a high norm and I'm talking like well experienced CNC machinists and top notch welders or computer/network system engineers. $18-$20 forklift drivers in the past now make $10 hr. Most of the jobs list a need for 3-5 years doing whatever it is the job is for at that higher pay. I've seen plenty of CPA jobs for $60K here and just pitiful. Large production plant managers (what few are left) in many cases make less than 100K, you can see smaller store managers all day long at 30K or less and they call it 'good pay'. The reality is that more people here work 3 jobs now than I have ever seen before. The $15+ jobs exist but oh, the cutthroat fighting that goes on over them!

Here in Texas and as close to the political discussing of it as I will get. There's even a $2 average pay hit across a 30 mile divide here in DFW, or the cheaper Fort Worth area as vs. Dallas, the cheaper west side gets paid less almost across the board and it's been that way for many years, why I drove 30-50 miles to Dallas for 35 years, it paid off bigtime. 

I've begun to call plastic car kits as unobtanium at over say $20, after all most of them are recasts from already existing molds. The $35 upper end ones are simply ridiculous. Stick around for the clearance sale (internet!) or use that Hobby Lobby 40% coupon, the local competition here (Michael's) has been forced to go 50% to compete after saying they would never do it. Of course the hobby aisle has been gutted to have maybe 20-30 kits in all. I will not give away big money for kits any longer except in very rare cases. I can see the higher amounts for newly cut molds but not old ones and don't care how rare they are. The companies can choke right along with me. 

Here, pay people $10 /hr. and all they care about is when the Bluebell ice cream is coming back, not much thought at all about their futures. They just lie down and accept it. 

I have equated average kit prices versus my hourly wage for 45+ years now. Thankfully most of my collection is done and at the much cheaper prices of the past. Most bought at two kits per hour or even more in some cases. Life was good. 

Anybody remember when you could spend a good hour in ToysRUs looking at the super long plastic kit aisle? I miss those days sorely. When they phased it out, I knew the world, she was a'changin'. 

Even better, the influx of the so-called super discounter chains in the mid-late '60s like the original KMart, Gibson's or Spartan Atlantic, where you saved up all summer for a kit and then discovered to your delight you could almost afford two or defer to get the much bigger deluxe kit? I remember asking Mom for a loan of 20 more cents to be able to buy two at a time, I'd never been able to do that before. Wow, those were the days.


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## wjplenge (Apr 14, 2011)

I'm not a "car guy" but an observation on models (and life) in general is it continually gets more costly. Kit's I bought for 99 cents in the 60's are around $20 when they're reissued now (and that involves no new tooling costs, just general inflation) any new kit I see that catches my interest I expect to be released around double that cost and if it's large scale 3 to 4 times that cost. However the plus side to it is for the money I'm getting a kit that is usually more detailed then those I got as a kid and the parts usually fit a lot better. Or maybe I'm just older and more patient now. As a kid that .99 kit was my weeks allowance, now that $40 kit is my take home from under a half days work. Also as a kid I didn't spend a lot finishing the kits (a couple of 15 cent Testor Paints and Q tips) now I can spend several times the cost of the kit on photoetch, paints, masks, lighting etc. Still it's a good thing, there are so many more options to the hobby than there were back in the "good old days."


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## finaprint (Jan 29, 2006)

Seems to me though that that last big jump from mid $20 to $35+ averaged out is going to filter out lots of sales of product, they have now come to realize that kids pretty much don't buy this stuff, rather old guys still locked into yesterday. The trouble is, their clientele is rapidly disappearing. 

Like video systems and games, there is a price beyond which sales drop like a rock and I think they are knocking the doors on that level. 

When I can fix the car with the money saved from not buying one kit the choice becomes crystal clear. That choice occurs all the time now since I fix my own cars and never job the work out, the average $800-$1000 repair now is laughable to me. I know most others do not do that but it has affected me in that particular manner. 

I can still afford $35 kits easily but that high number has crossed a barrier in my mind. I won't be going there much at all. It's a value perceived thing. Besides, I'm buried in kits already.


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

Of course a lot of the more expensive cars are not just a plain jane car kit. You get photo etch, carbon fiber decals, wiring, maybe special Cartograph decals, etc. So you do get a lot of bang for the buck. And this is true with a lot of models; not just cars. When I was a kid, the average 1/48 WW2 plane kit had about three dozen parts. Now you get kits with three dozen parts just for the engine or cockpit. 

Of course a lot of stuff is cheaper today even if you compare a 2015 dollar with a 1975 dollar. A giant 35" color console TV back in the day would run you $800 easily, yet a modern hi def, flat screen, 49" smart TV is $400 today. Radio control sets are vastly cheaper too. When I first started selling RC stuff in the mid 80s, a 4 channel set was $500 and they are less than half that today and infinitely better.


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## hwmccullough (Jul 15, 2010)

I know exactly how you feel. I recently got back into modeling after about a 20 year absence. I have a friend who runs a small model car business out of his home in PA and I get most of mine from him. Including shipping his prices are normally still lower than the local Michael's (that's all we have where I live). I also use the 40% and 50% off single item coupons from Michael's, but their selection is rather limited.


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

It just pays to shop around. I bought a MiniArt Panzer III kit recently off Lucky Model in Hong Kong. Their price WITH airmail, overseas, postage was something like $48. US vendors have the kit for $55-$57 PLUS shipping.


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## Cajjunwolfman (Nov 15, 2004)

Try your local IPMS or car
Model club show or
Meeting.
Usually the kits sell for less then half of retail.
I bought two MIBS NASCAR kits for $5.00.
For $1 raffle I won a Tamiya Road Rally car, partially started but for a buck who cares!


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## MadCap Romanian (Oct 29, 2005)

Seems like the standard kit price in Canada for cars can be anywhere from $18-$35 depending on the model. Some AMT's, like the 1925 Model T's where you get 2 in a box, are $45.


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## hwmccullough (Jul 15, 2010)

Would love to check out a local model car show or meet but there are non in the Raleigh NC area that I know if.




Cajjunwolfman said:


> Try your local IPMS or car
> Model club show or
> Meeting.
> Usually the kits sell for less then half of retail.
> ...


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

I went to the IPMS Orlando show last week and bought a brand new, shrink wrapped, $50 Tristar Panzer IV 4 in 1 kit for a low $10. The guy had $15 on it but I still went for $10 and he accepted. Most of the brand new kits for sale (like recent releases) were at pretty much retail. But, for stuff a year or two or three or more old, you could get them for 1/2 or 3/4 off list or more. Plus Frank/Moebius is at all the Florida shows with awesome deals on his kits plus a lot of Round 2 sci fi stuff. Sometimes it pays to plan to hit a decent size show and take some extra cash. $100 at the local hobby shop will get you three new cars and a can of spray paint but at a show you can go home with 10 kits.


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## Seashark (Mar 28, 2006)

I've noticed a big increase too. I remember when I used to build a lot of car models back in the '90's most were $9.99. Now, fifteen years later I'm struggling to justify purchasing one car at $24.99.


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## mr-replica (Sep 25, 2011)

They cost that much because so many picky model builders keep demanding more and more details. A truly skilled modeler knows how to detail a model and does not need the kit to contain all of that. He can create those himself. They cost so much because much fewer plastic kits are now being made. When I was a kid, plastic kits were being sold at the rate of millions per year. 

Due to the high volume, they cost less. They actually decreased in price over the years I was growing up. In 1970, AMT released what they called the Motor City Stockers series, basically unassembled and uncolored promos. The retail price was $1.00, KMart sold them for 68 cents. They sold millions of them and for the first time since 1967, AMT beat the new MPC in kit sales. I was 14 then and astonished at the price and used all of my money I made from mowing lawns and odd jobs to buy a bunch of them. 

Others did the same, apparently. Spray paint model cars one day, while the paint dries, build the interior, add details to the chassis, maybe add a few of your own touches to the interior. I built about 5 to 7 kits a week. Sometimes, more. 

If you spend weeks, months to build one model kit, that is great. But of course that means very little profits to the kit manufacturers, thus the high prices they now charge. It's also why young kids don't care about our hobby much. 

Hobby shows also demand perfection and that you build kits to please others, not yourself. That's why we lost young people in this hobby. My 13 year old nephew lamented that he can't build a kit like the shows want or what the car magazines say should be done. I told him, ignore the snobs, build them how you want and have fun. 

Some judge at a hobby show knows nothing about fun.


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## finaprint (Jan 29, 2006)

X2 to all that...............


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## scooke123 (Apr 11, 2008)

I don't think it would matter to kids these days if the Model companies sold car models for $1 each - they just as a whole aren't interested in models. Way too many other interests for them to occupy their time. There are still some kids interested in models but I don't think any amount of promoting would turn the majority of kids around.
I myself as a modeler love the added detailing and extras they put into kits. If its more than what I want to pay I pass on it - plenty more kits out there I can spend my money on. I don't feel I'm a less skilled modeler because I don't scratch-build everything and I don't put a quota or time limit on the amount of models I have to build in a certain period of time. I'm happy they are even putting out the amount of kits they do now - I don't see the model companies coming up with a way to sell thousands of kits anymore and stay profitable. I challenge the so-called experts in marketing to start up their own companies if they can do a better job. Easy to sit back with all the answers and possibly not have all the behind the scenes in todays market.


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## starduster (Feb 12, 2006)

Back in the 60's I would shop at Polk's hobby shop in NYC with 5 floors of hobbies the 3rd floor I think had wall to wall car models which were about $ 3.70 with tax they had about every model car made, the other floors had ships planes trains and the ground floor had soldiers and those were in the $ 10.00 to $ 25.00, spendy even then. Karl


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