I've run a small business and with that comes a few facts. I couldn't buy wholesale at the same price that say Walmart could; therefore, I paid more and had to sell my product for more than Walmart did. I understand the higher price of this tank than say a HL. HL now has a long history of producing tanks, selling them, dealing with their vendors, and paying their bills. I'm sure HL doesn't produce all of the parts of it's tanks using in house HL factories. I don't know of any product that is produced 100% "in house". When a small company wants to get into the manufacturing game, suppliers are justified in having some trepidation of getting into business with a company that has unproven business practices. I would say that a higher price would be quoted to a company requesting a small run. Firstly the manufacturer wants to make sure the company they are doing business with is serious about the relationship. Secondly they want to build in some slush to make money due to the unknowns. And thirdly the vendor is producing in a small quantity and so doesn't get as high of a volume discount on it's raw materials. Lastly, the company commissioning the build will often charge a higher initial price to cover R&D, unknowns, and to provide capital for future releases. It is a large investment to get a product to market using injection molding. There is no guarantee that the product you produce is even going to sell once you produce it. There is a ton of risk and it all falls on the shoulders of the company commissioning the build. I applaud Haya for doing this. I can't even recall all of the vendors that have made promises of this release or that release and never followed through. I have never seen a perfect tank for sale in 1/16 scale. All of them I've worked on needed some upgrades of some form to fix something the vendor overlooked (and yes even my Tamiyas) or needed improvement to meet my expectations. It may not even be overlooked, but an issue of manufacturing the part that way or something as simple as cost. I have no special bond with the Chieftain, but I simply liked the looks of the the tank and have zero complaints so far about the price. If the extra money keeps Haya making interesting tanks...I'm happy to pay it - within reason.
$1800 for a 1/16 scale Maus is a little unreasonable to me seeing as I spent that much on my first real, full sized motorcycle.