Foxy

Wow! You musta been on the debating commitee.

Seriously though, simplistic as it is, this may be a relevant contribution.

Dawolf, I'd like to kepe the subject to large scale, as this is a large scale forum, but since I've raced and owned the major nitro classes, I can field that one for you. Yes, almost every successful nitro vehicle has been cloned at one time or another. Some companies have licensed clones (Redcat, Exceed, Ansmann (Ansmann in particular make very good quality clones of the Hyper 7 buggy (which itself was a VERY good car) at a very good price), it's called the virus), others are unlicensed, but a number of companies in nitro and electric 1/18th to 1/8th scales have become large and successful on the clone market. The large scale scene is in it's infancy still, even though there are some well supported and long running models (as there also were before tamiya popularised RC in general 25 years ago), the entry of HPI to the market is only now bringing large scale to the mainstream. Remember when nitro cars were all 2wd, then came the 4wd, now there's very few 2wd except in the specific racing classes (like 1/10th stadium truck and electric buggy).

Anyway, to bring this full circle and back on topic, cloning is part of the logical cycle for the progression of a class or fuel, as it matures. Eventually, the real high quality racing machines will be beyond the capabilities of the cloners due to expense of materials. You don't see clones of Xray cars for example. Why not? Because the whole car is carbon fiber and T6 ally, and would not work properly if it was plastic and steel. So eventually, the cloners will lose to the high quality, high price brands, but that will be in the future when the HPI Baja as an example will be considered a basher precursor to the prevalent models.