No it doesnt offer a challenge to Tamiya. If anything it re affirms Tamiya's superior quality in it's manufacturing and components. anything HL based is not going to warrant a 7 or 8 hundred dollar price tag. There simply is not enough quality in any part of an HL based kit, model or otherwise. Yeah i have an HL tiger that wound up costing more than a Tamiya tiger ever would have and it is a beast but ittook so much work and trial and error to get it to that point it was nuts. One upgrade after another and so much custom work. There is no way I will ever pay that kind of money for anything other than a Tamiya, Tiagen included.