Is the Wingnuts phenomenon winding down?

[dr 1 ace]

Richard told me that they have their new releases already mapped out to 2020, ie work in progress currently at various stages

...news of my passing are greatly exaggerated...    20 numbers still un-accounted for... ,  aha!

[lcarroll]

Richard told me that they have their new releases already mapped out to 2020, ie work in progress currently at various stages

Now, that's a significant comment, at least to my ears, Jamo. I'd say Richard is as about as "close to the source" as we are going to hear from. All's not lost given reference to "release (s)" and a date four years down the road! Just need to be patient, is all!
Cheers,
Lance

[RAGIII]

Richard told me that they have their new releases already mapped out to 2020, ie work in progress currently at various stages

Now, that's a significant comment, at least to my ears, Jamo. I'd say Richard is as about as "close to the source" as we are going to hear from. All's not lost given reference to "release (s)" and a date four years down the road! Just need to be patient, is all!
Cheers,
Lance

I agree completely! Although being patient isn't one of my best qualities The one thing that has been repeated many times in a number of threads is that WNW business plan,( whatever it is), is like no other Model Company. We all know that other companies keep certain Money Cows in production almost continually. I am sure the 109s , 190s, Spits, and Zeroes keep Tamigawa well financed for research and development. As others have said, DVIIs and Albatros DVs would have the same effect  here. But it is obviously NOT the WNW way. SO we wait. IN the mean time I still have Roden, SH etc. kits to build as well as my small WNW stash. I still say the decline in interest will cease when the Camel and any other recognizable kit appears. The interest will peak again! JMHO,
RAGIII

[macsporran]

Richard told me that they have their new releases already mapped out to 2020, ie work in progress currently at various stages

...news of my passing are greatly exaggerated...    20 numbers still un-accounted for... ,  aha!

I certainly hope you are right, but another quote comes to mind, from Mandy Rice-Davies at the Profumo affair trial - "Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?"

I saw PJ talking the other day and he said his first objective with a new movie is ensuring the investors get their money back. I can't see he'll be happy bankrolling a loss-making company for ever - and I doubt they've sold very much at all since the last price increases.

I just wish they'd adopt a sensible business plan coz we'd all hate to see them go west. One idea would be to re-release popular sold out kits - they could ask for pre-orders to guage numbers required; and perhaps offer discounts for those committing to buy up-front.
Fingers crossed, they manage to fill the 20 extant product numbers, but I hae ma doots!
S

[JiffyJDavies]

I have to believe that WNW will be kept solvent by Mr Jackson. If it were otherwise, surely they'd make a few more thousand Fokker D.VII, Triplanes, Pups, RE.8's, etc??? Do some proper marketing, look to the retail sector, adopt some sort of PR. It's just weird, a company that refuses to sell it's most popular kits beyond a certain number of moulds? It only makes sense when you assume PJ's bankrolling it, but that makes the massive price increases & expected shipping costs more difficult to explain?

I just don't get WNW at all.

[Ernie]

I have to believe that WNW will be kept solvent by Mr Jackson. If it were otherwise, surely they'd make a few more thousand Fokker D.VII, Triplanes, Pups, RE.8's, etc??? Do some proper marketing, look to the retail sector, adopt some sort of PR. It's just weird, a company that refuses to sell it's most popular kits beyond a certain number of moulds? It only makes sense when you assume PJ's bankrolling it, but that makes the massive price increases & expected shipping costs more difficult to explain?

I just don't get WNW at all.

It is strange that they wouldn't cash in on the almost sure market for the Albys, Fokkers and the such.  I've
given up trying to figure it out.

Cheers,
Ernie

[dr 1 ace]

I have to believe that WNW will be kept solvent by Mr Jackson. If it were otherwise, surely they'd make a few more thousand Fokker D.VII, Triplanes, Pups, RE.8's, etc??? Do some proper marketing, look to the retail sector, adopt some sort of PR. It's just weird, a company that refuses to sell it's most popular kits beyond a certain number of moulds? It only makes sense when you assume PJ's bankrolling it, but that makes the massive price increases & expected shipping costs more difficult to explain?

I just don't get WNW at all.

It is strange that they wouldn't cash in on the almost sure market for the Albys, Fokkers and the such.  I've
given up trying to figure it out.

Cheers,
Ernie

Per that last quote maybe we should all adopt that position and takes whatever fate has in store.

Ed.

[mike in calif]

It is also hard for me to imagine, or try to guess the sort of income stream Mr. Jackson has. While the operating expense of a WNW style of business can be extrapolated, at least to a point, I'd have a very vague idea of actual costs. So, IMDB states PJs salary just for King Kong at 20 mil + 20% of gross. That's a lot of cheese. LOTR, and The Hobbit would add some similar numbers, esp. as LOTR has made 1 billion worldwide. So, after all of that, the costs of creating a model company may be more in perspective. I'd still se the value in a re-run of specific kits, but that can be dismissed as straight linear thinking, and not out-of-the-box thinking, which PJ does very well.
 Of course people like me may be a bit burned out on the lack of info, and figure it'll be here when it gets here. Until then, I have a few WNW kits to build.

[Monty]

I love that... Until then I have a few WNW kits to build... Yeah, we all wait in fevered anticipation for the "next" release, but by my count there have been 49 individual boxings, variants included, I admit, but all completely different, since 2009 - that's just over 6 per year, or one every two months on average! (Not including dog-fight doubles...). Now compare this to Tamiya, they have a great reputation but I can only count 24 releases since 1994 in 1/32 scale, including variants, this is about 1 point one per year! And Tamiya is regarded as a "benchmark" leader! Yes, Trumpeter release a lot more, there's also HobbyBoss, KittyHawk, and Roden, Not to mention Special Hobby, but their ranges and overall presentation and quality leave something to be desired... Hasegawa and Revell were really big in the past, but their recent production has fallen off considerably.. When we talk about quality, it was WNW that made other manufacturers step up to the mark: Only since they were around do you get full colour instruction booklets in premium productions and information in detail with photographs of the prototype, not to mention 5 colour schemes and photoetch. I won't even mention the website, it may take a decade for the others to catch up...

But as you wait impatiently for the next WNW boxing please remember a few pointers put out by WNW themselves:  it takes 18 months as a minimum to go from idea to production of ONE kit: If they  do a whole lot of variants (ie Eindekker or Camel) this will take longer: There are release numbers up to 60 already, Oh Happy days! There are only 3 criteria for releasing a kit (Actually 4, must be WW1):  2:Do we, WNW (ie Sir Peter) want to see a model of it? 3: Do we have enough references? 4: Do we think other modellers want to build a model of it? So, Happy days again, I'm sure that the Fokker Triplane and Zeppellin Staaken will both be released sometime!

The other issue is re-releases: There is absolutely no reason that WNW will not re-release every model they produce at some time in the future, in fact, they have done so already: If you look at the kit number of the OAW DV, it comes after the early Albatross, so they almost certainly had to do a re-run of those: But as WNW says, you will never get the same markings and maybe not even the same PE and extra details again: Every new release will be different.

Lastly, do the Excellent Staff at WNW ever have a good laugh at us and our anxieties? Yes, I'm sure they do, they are most unlikely to go bankrupt or stop production in the near future, I'm sure they still sell plenty and make money, I'm sure they get an extra laugh at the evil-bay prices (This is good for the marque, like Ferrari Auction prices) and they wish us well as we enjoy their kits, unbuilt or built....

Regards,

Marc