We awoke this morning to an usual press release from the GT Spirit team. To be honest our team is still trying to make heads or tails of the announcement. Two parts to the press release. First, it seems their sealed resin line is going to be hit with a substantial retail increase. They go into the details below. Second, the unveiling of a new diecast line with opening parts, the kicker, retail is suggested at under 80 Euro.
So let’s break this down somewhat. Resin was to be the savor, reduce cost and in turn reduce the retail and speed to market. This worked initially for the brand. But as we know the quality control and overall execution was shady for the last 8-10 months on most releases. So will the increase fix the issues, and where will this new price point be in 2018? Only time will time the entire story.
The diecast announcement is fantastic. And under 80 Euro price point too! The team acquired rights to the Solido brand a number of years ago. I’m sure this helped the GT Spirit refine their craft and see the R&D process for creating a true a diecast line. Though the questions remain. Will this actually happen? What will be the overall quality? How is diecast with opening parts cheaper to produce that resin? Will the price actually hit their project target of 79 Euro? We’re at a loss here. We placed the entire press release below for you to read.
What are your thoughts folks?
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Hello,
As you are a valued client of our GT Spirit collection, we wish to inform you of numerous important pieces of information.
Next year we will have to update our tariffs according to the contextual changes related to our products and their place of production.
We have done everything we can to delay this moment for as long as possible, but today we have no other option.
Many factors are taken into account, but the main causes are:
** Increased cost of the license agreements (up to 19% on certain dual license models)
** A 30% increase in the price of raw materials (packaging, cardboard and plastic)
** Inflation at 5% per year in China
** Increases in the cost of transport following the bankruptcy of several shipping companies
We have tried to compensate for these rises by increasing our production volume, and also thanks to the rise of the Euro against the US Dollar, but this is not enough and we can no longer maintain our current sales prices for the 1/18th GT Spirit range. We will remain the cheapest on the market for this type of product but we now need to align more with the tariffs charged by our main competitors.
This is why we have worked on an alternative in order to return to more acceptable rates. From 2019, some GT Spirit models will be made in Diecast, all opening, and for a price of around 79.90 euro public price. In this way we will return to the basics of the range that we put in place 5 years ago now.
We will provide you with more information shortly.
In the meantime, all the GT Spirit team thank you for your loyalty and wish you a very good day.
80€… Will the models have a good detail quality for this price? Will they leave the resin market? A lot of questions…
If they increase the price of the resin models, I hope the quality will be better. Top Speed makes more quality models for me.
” From 2019, some GT Spirit models will be made in Diecast, all opening, and for a price of around 79.90 euro public price. In this way we will return to the basics of the range that we put in place 5 years ago now.”
Then I will buy it, but only diecast + all opening combo … Autoart left a great price range and other brands want to take advantage of the opportunity. Will Autoart back to the 120-150 price range and full diecast?
Almost real, GTspirit…
I guess the diecast line will have larger volumes to make them at these prices. So I expect less different models and I’m curious what models they will do in this line.
GT Spirit was very successful at the beginning but in the last 1-2 year a lot of new manufacturers jumped into resin so they have a lot of competition at a similar price point charging just a bit more. Also they already announced lower production volumes and a price increase for their resin models but this time it sound a bit more serious. I think they are really going into tough times – not just to justify a coming price increase.
As for the diecast announcement I am pretty sure this was already in the cards considering they own Solido and have a partnership with Kyosho. But announcing it now along with the projected diecast price point (80 eur) helps to make some diversion on what’s in the cards regarding the resin price tags. Time will tell but IMO expect 119 eur eventually.
And a lower price point for diecast can be easily be achieved with high production mumbers so no surprise here but the quality and amount of detail remains to be seen.
I’m an old collector. I think that are there 1/18 die-cast models without opening parts that already sell for about € 50/55. Collectors of the same kind fo me, appreciate these models for their good lines and the price that put them close to some 1/43 industrial models. Will you be able to keep the pace with opening parts without exceeding 80 euros ? If so this may be very interesting. I’ll keep in touch for future developments…
Marco
It seems you hit the nail on the head. Resin was originally touted to be our savior.It was supposed to be: 1) considerably cheaper than diecast, 2) shorter times from announcement to market, and 3) offer many niche cars that couldn’t be done in diecast. It seems all we collectors got from this was #3. Most resin manufacturers seem to think a $250 sealed resin brick compares favorably with a $325 full-opening diecast. They are wrong.