1/18 Die Cast KITT Coming In December

[corlando52]

Daniel,
I hope you're right about the scanner. It'll make less work for me.
As for the dash, I'll have to see it before I decide. It might be easy enough to just use a jewler's drill and make holes where the LEDs are, back it with some colored gels, and illuminate it with an 12V auto bulb (like a turning light bulb or interior light bulb) Actually, thinking about it, they make while LEDs that are pretty bright and don't get hot. That might work better than a car bulb which does get hot.
I've never really worked with fiberoptics, but it would be really cool. You could make a color wheel, direct the fiber optics at it, and actually do the startup sequence, but that's a lot of work, and you'd have to make a display base to hide the mechanism.
I worked in a graphic arts department for about 20 years and we would do all sorts of funky display stuff.

Chris

[sarfraz]

Yes, it will be similar.. All the same features will be incorporated (as seen in this early pic from Aoshima)...

OK, last time....THEY'RE THE SAME CAR!!!! Ertl is shipping to Aoshima, who will box them in the Asian box. The car, complete and painted, will come from Ertl. Aoshima is just sticking them in their own boxes so the Asian market can read it.

That's what the products manager meant.."shipping worldwide.."

Chris

...and how would you explain KARR

Sarfraz

[imranbecks]

Yes, it will be similar.. All the same features will be incorporated (as seen in this early pic from Aoshima)...

OK, last time....THEY'RE THE SAME CAR!!!! Ertl is shipping to Aoshima, who will box them in the Asian box. The car, complete and painted, will come from Ertl. Aoshima is just sticking them in their own boxes so the Asian market can read it.

That's what the products manager meant.."shipping worldwide.."

Chris

...and how would you explain KARR

Sarfraz

LOL!!!! Good one Sarfraz!!!

Anyways, I'm really waiting patiently for the model to be released...... C'mon man, c'mon...

[themarvelous3]

Yes, it will be similar.. All the same features will be incorporated (as seen in this early pic from Aoshima)...

OK, last time....THEY'RE THE SAME CAR!!!! Ertl is shipping to Aoshima, who will box them in the Asian box. The car, complete and painted, will come from Ertl. Aoshima is just sticking them in their own boxes so the Asian market can read it.

That's what the products manager meant.."shipping worldwide.."

Chris :roll:

...and how would you explain KARR :?:

Sarfraz

oh i dont know...they were made in japan. how hard do you think i t was for them to buy silver paint, stick in a yellow scanner and change the color of the voice mod? half the people here were talking about doing similar things to make KITT more accurate i'm sure a big company like that would have no problem modifying KITTs to sell as KARRs. Also would help explain the price diff since they would have to buy twice as many KITTs from ERTYL to fill the actual KITT orders and then the KARR orders on top of that.

[sarfraz]

Hmmm, you do realise that its going to require some serious re-manfacturing for that to work. We don't have clear quantities of Aoshima's KR products but I would bet that its not so simple as "half" of us altering the actual car. My point with what you said previously is that it makes no business sense to buy stocks of another companies product (from the USA) rather than buying direct from the manufacturing point...in this case its most likely to be China....not Japan. If you buy in bulk, the price would be signifacntly less. Couple this with the fact that if Aoshima buys from ERTL its not going to be the RRP (recommended retail price). Its more likely to be a lower trade price. This would mean that even including repackaging (really dubious as the 1/43 was nearly all in english) and repainting of KARR, there shouldn't be the price difference there is. In general toy/model prices are in the far east than the west so somethings not quite right. Even imported US stuff is cheaper in the far east (eg Hasbro specification Transformers)! Taking what I said about the 1/43 car, ERTL don't need Aoshimas help on shipping worldwide. ERTL's a massive company and could easily alter the packaging (if need be)....ever heard of multi-lingual packaging?

Furthermore, the wording from ERTL of "exactly the same car" can be abit more muddling than it first seems. In essence, exactly the same car could mean than its KITT (which it is) or its the same mould. I don't deny that the mould is the same (looks the same to me) but I am highly dubious of the rest. I brought up KARR as I have a theory that Aoshima's spec's maybe different to ERTL's (paint, finish, materials). I've heard numerous companies come up with statements like these, and its very hard to nail the truth. An example (go back a few pages) is Hasbro Transformers which are exactly the same as Takara's.....however 9/10 there always different, make sense of that.

I'm not saying for certain there will be differences, just that at this point I don't care. UK prices of the ERTL car are looking to be much closer to Aoshima's so its not so radical to go with Aoshima. US prices are looking to be cheaper than UK (always the case ) so from your point of view its more clear cut on which to choose.

Sarfraz

[DanielB]

UK Diecast retailer carinabox.com replied to an e-mail I sent them this afternoon, stating that the car will arrive in December.

[corlando52]

OK, I thought the phrase "will be shipped into worldwide markets" was the give-away phrase. The products manager was asked by my friend at the Chicago show if Ertl was sharing the molds with Aoshima and she said Ertl never shares the molds with anyone.
As for KARR, it was stated in the last email I posted from her:

"The KITT car is the only one we are producing at this time, we are checking into producing KARR later in 2005."

As you said, importing KITT and then altering it would be a hefty project. Besides the paint, let's not forget the different scanner AND the different voicebox...oh, and the licence plate!
And you're probably right about the multi-lingual boxes. Maybe Ertl is doing the whole thing and just shipping them complete, in the boxes, to the worldwide market.

Chris

[sarfraz]

...which would make Aoshimas role redundant so something doesn't stick. Why would Aoshima have a product for sale if ERTL is doing the same in the same market....

Sarfraz

[imranbecks]

Hmmm... With all this going on abt the release for the ERTL KITT set for December... What does this mean for the Aoshima 1:18 KITT/KARR??? Will they be released in December as well...... I hope not... I'm going for my national service in december!!!!!!

[sarfraz]

Chill, you can always send them to us to keep safe

Sarfraz

[corlando52]

Aoshima is just going to be the distributor for the Ertl KITT in Asia.

[DanielB]

Just speaking to my mate who works in the shop where I have my reservations, he said it's due on the 17th or 25th of November! Yay!

[corlando52]

Dan,
That's GREAT news! The sooner the better!!!!!

Chris

[Knight Industries 3000]

I'd much rather see a 1:18 "super pursuit mode" KITT than a KARR replica. There's never been a decent SPM KITT toy. Of course, a KARR would be much less costly to produce.

[imranbecks]

Just speaking to my mate who works in the shop where I have my reservations, he said it's due on the 17th or 25th of November! Yay!

That is great news!!! I really hope it is the same for the Aoshima models as well...

[HondaSiR]

I'd much rather see a 1:18 "super pursuit mode" KITT than a KARR replica. There's never been a decent SPM KITT toy. Of course, a KARR would be much less costly to produce.

That may be a distinct possibility in the future, not a few Knight Rider fans have a craving for the SPM KITT. However, manufacturing one may have threefold difficulties as compared with the normal KITT version. New toolings for the car's body will have to be created. It will all depend on wether the 1:18 normal KITT will turn in a huge profit, convincing ERTL or Aoshima that the overwhelming demand is there. In my opinion, it is possible.

[DanielB]

Re: SPM - never say never. Hotwheels released a model of the Batmobile from the 1989 film with the shields up, so who knows? I preferred the Convertible KITT to SPM - thought SPM was ugly!

[Skav]

SPM may have been ugly to some, but remember, the sole purpose of it was to be in use for michael and kitt to be in a hurry or chase something....i'm sure when those guys at the garage in KOTJ were making it, they weren't goin for looks.

however, i'm strictly talking about the KR universe, not reality.

btw, i'm one of the rare fans of SPM...i liked it.

[PBH]

Rare?!? Hmmm. I'm a huge fan & so are all those around me. This sounds like a Poll to me!

[corlando52]

OK, I agree with Dan on this. I never liked SPM KITT. I thought it was really reaching for the kids market. KITT always seemed with the realm of possiblity for me. SPM doesn't. But then again, I didn't like when they changed the voicebox on KITT from the flashing red box to the 3 line, LED version, because I thought he looked too much like KARR. But then it grew on me and I much prefer the 3 line voicebox now. BUT, I don't like the one screen dash. So, to summarize, I like Season 2 KITT, and that's it.
But, that's just me...

Chris

[Lost Knight]

This also sounds like a good poll idea to me, only I'm curious as to everyone's favorite version of K.I.T.T. Let's find out.

[Dave Knight]

after seeing this pic and the one with the trunk open, i notice that even though the 'carpet' is tan they forgot to make the middle section that the console sits on as well as the back area behind the seat tan. Looks like im gonna dissasemble the car and mask off the console and repaint the interior in Testors Dark Tan, a color that matches the doeskin tan interior of the rear car a lot more than the tan plastic of the diecast. Plus it will have a more realistic sheen of cloth and carpet unlike the shiny plastic of the current car.

[corlando52]

Dave,
If that were the final version, I would have to agree with you. But you have to remember, all the models at the various shows were only prototypes and even each one of those were different.
We'll just have to wait to see what the final product looks like. I certainly hope they fix that, too!

Chris

[HondaSiR]

Yes, ERTL has confirmed that the car in the pics are just prototypes. Who knows? Perhaps they will go the extra mile and install full fabric tan upholstery inside KITT. I've seen it done on some 1/18 scale Kyosho model cars and it looks fantastic.

[Dave Knight]

i have a few of Ertls 1/18 scale diecasts one of them is the General Lee which has the tan interior the same color as the KITT interior, comeplete with tan 'carpeting'. As for realistic fabric interior you wont get that on a ERTL diecast kyosho *spelling?* models are almost 100 bucks and up in price. I have a Kyosho Aston Martin from Die Another Day and it was like almost 400 bucks new

Kyosho Aston Martin Die Another Day Diecast