That is interesting Rob.
I had just assumed (i guess, quite naively) that these companies do their own research and sketches and created their own molds etc.
But i guess if you’re a fledgling company, it’s easier to ride somebody else’s work.
That is a shame, but i guess a reality of the business world.
This whole scenario reminds me of a line from “Cheech and Chongs Next Movie”. The line goes,“Hey man! Somebody ripped off the [cnsod] I ripped off!”
Why does it strike me this way? Well, 1) this is not an original kit, or a conversion for a kit all of the guys own making- he modified Dragons existing kit, and is selling it. 2)I doubt that he had Dragons permission to cast their kit parts no matter how modified by him, and sell them, 3) I doubt that if he did receive that permission, that he is giving Dragon any percentage of his Gross, let alone profit that he gets from selling his modified copy of their product. The guy is starting out in very questionable ground.
It should also be noted that the Trumpeter clone-kits were also sold under the brand name CC Lee. To be avoided…
I’ve built both the Italeri and Academy 1/35 HMMWVs. They were quite a bit different. Italeri had wheels molded with the tires on, Academy had rubber tires separate from the rims. Academy had the option of opening the turtle back hatch and top turret hatch, Italeri did not. Academy initially offered the armaments carrier with a M2 .50 or a M60 7.62 MG options, and later released the TOW variant, while Italeri came out with the TOW carrier initially and I do not recall them ever releasing the armament carrier version. Plus the Academy kit came with the Marine Corps wading gear that I have yet to see in any Italeri release. I don’t see how the Academy kit can be considered a clone in any way.
They did change a lot of the Italeri kits and were not direct clones like many of their Tamiya copies. Like the M60 road wheels that they added rubber vinyl rims to, they did the same thing with Italeri wheels. But if you look closely at the parts breakdown between the original base Italeri 1980s kits and the Academy 1990s kits you can see the relationship. As we all know, Italeri’s HMMWVs were rather poor, but better than the only other option at the time, the Esci HMMWVs.
The only other HMMWV on the market at the time was the Tamiya one with the M242 Bushmaster which is the Italeri kit in a prototype version only boxed by Tamiya. Much like Academy did when they copied Tamiya’s M1 Abrams into an M1A1, they improved upon that HMMWV kit to make it into more up to date into versions seen during Desert Storm.
I figured most of this out when I was writing an Italeri HMMWV article like 10 years back and was comparing available kits by Italeri, old Tamiya (new Tamiya are totally unrelated), Revell, Esci/AMT/Ertl and Academy. While the Esci/AMT kit parts are not exchangeable with Italeri kits because of some dimensional issues; you can mix and match the base Italeri HMMWV kit parts with the Academy kits.
Don’t get me wrong, the Academy HMMWVs are better than Italeri ones since Academy improved them.
Interesting… I want to say that Academy beefed up the suspension parts as well… The Italeri ones are far more fragile. Kudos to Academy for all the improvements! Now if I can only score one of each of the new Tamiya kits for a good price…
I know my lhs has the Tamiya 1046, but it’s $40. Heck his price for that new Meng Busk Brad is $80 with tax that’s like $85. I can get it delivered from the Far East for around $60.
Yes we had a new Tamiya M1046 at this months AMPS chapter fundraising auction… But somebody wanted to bid more than me… But each month there are bargains to be had there… Especially from our Chinese connection.