[gundam40]

I was taking a detailed look at my Kyosho Nissan Z-L yesterday, and something struck me. That model was made in 1997, when UT was still in business.

I didn't collect diecasts yet back then, but why were UT's so much more popular than the Kyoshos? It seems back then, Kyoshos had better subject matter (than now, only BMWs now... ullhair), and their quality/details are AMAZING! Some of the more recent AUTOart's can't even compare to that Z-L!

Was the price difference between a UT and a Kyosho that much? I heard from you guys that UT's used to cost around 30USD each?

It's just weird to me cause it seems Kyosho has amazing details, and the prices (today) are very competitive, especially with AUTOart's price increases, yet no one really seems to hail Kyosho like they do AUTOart and Minichamps :confused

Thanks in advance for all your comments/tutelage!

 

[Guest]

The availibilty (at least in Malta) was never large. Only few pieces made it here. Also, Ut had a larger selestion in my opinion.

UT has Porsche, Mercedes, McLaren, BMW and so on. All great marques, Kyosho doesn't seem to have such a large number of names, even nowadays, it still suffers when compared to what AUTOart have to offer.

I like Kyoshos, believe me, I have the lp400 and lp500s and they are striking cars, I would also love to have the Miura Jota SVR... but that is all. If I look at Minichamps and AUTOart, there are about a dozen of each which I would like to add. The selestion is much larger. I think that is the most problematic thing for Kyoshos

 

[gundam40]

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Ya, I can understand in the present day, the kyosho lineup sucks. But back then, they had: Skylines, RX7, Supra, NSX, Fairladys, Lotus, etc. That's a pretty big selection compared to now. But you're probably right, it's because the more popular brands are all horded by UT, and no one buys the kyoshos :giggle

But were the Kyoshos priced a lot above UT's back then?

 

[Guest]

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Dont know, I was still collecting Ansons and BBuragos at that time. :giggle

 

[gundam40]

B...B... Bburagos! oh noes! :giggle

 

[RichardM]

Told you that ZL was a steal. :wink

 

[gundam40]

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Yeppers. I'm going to have to look for the 240ZG and the rally cars now...

 

[Guest]

I think the reason Kyosho's fine models from then weren't as popular because they weren't as readily available as UT Models (Not that they were abundant). Places like Sharper Image had a lot of important models (street McLaren, faster Porsche and BMWs) selling for about $30 .

I had never heard of Kyoshos until about 3 years ago, and still wasn't impressed by them as the older models were always in the catalogues and didn't look striking enough. That's why I missed out on the awesome Competizione when I had the chance before it completely sold out for a long time.

 

[gundam40]

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ya, their catalogues SUCKS at showing how good the models are. Of course, there ARE some crappy Kyoshos (300SL anyone? the new lower priced ones suck too). But generally their stuff is top notch. They're not on my top list of to-buy models because they're always getting reissues though... but they seem to know which ones I want, so they DON'T reissue those :ranting

 

[MockingBird]

hmm..yea, i think Kyoshos back then cost abit more then the UT cars...
and were not as well distributed i guess

 

[LUW]

in my opinion Kyosho's cars were always better then UT's products.

 

[winstoncds]

Few years back, much before AUTOart existed, we used to get an Australian tv shopping channel which used to sell a lot of good stuff including diecasts. They used to have half an hour or more everyday slots selling diecast. The majority then were Maisto, UT and Kyosho. The Kyoshos used to always sell for more than twice the amount (around 80 AUD) of the UTs and Maistos. Thats when I first came to know about something better existed than Buragos and Maistos.
I still remember them displaying a UT Porsche GT2 in silver. The host was drooling all over it. Maybe our friends from Australia know about the channel and if it still exists.

 

[JSB 33]

Kyosho was always expensive where UT was a much cheaper alternative like Winston mentioned.
Part of the popularity of UT is because of the subject matter of what they made plus the mystique of them being out of business.
People always want what they can't have (or at least get easily)

Also remeber that Kyosho is mainly a RC company that happens to make some diecast where UT was a diecast only company.

 

[Guest]

Yup, Kyoshos were expensive, and not quite readily available compare to UTs. Kyosho made some very nice models in the past, by the standard at that time.