Who owns tower hobbies

Polar Lights. PowerBox Systems. Pro Boat. R Rapido. RC Screwz. Redcat Racing. Revell Germany. RJ Speed. Robinson Racing. S Saito. T Tactic. Team Losi Racing. Team Orion. Tekno RC. Throttle Up. Thumler's Tumbler. Top Flite. After sueing JQ Racing for having an energy drink sponsor on their RTR cars whose name sounds like Arrma they deserved nothing less than bankruptcy. FIrst of all, Arrma did not sue them. They sent a cease and desist letter.

Second, the car itself was branded with the Arma logo, making the car basically look like a cheap Arrma knock off. Arrma had no problem with Arma or JQ Racing by themselves.

They also did not complain about technology that has been around for 20 or 30 years that everyone was using. What they did is complain about what amounts to branding that winds up looking very similar, and sounding identical, to an established name in the same industry. Nobody cares if names are the same or similar in different industries. And again, Arrma actually Hobbico did not sue.

They did the right thing and send a letter first. Im pretty concerned with what you said Rich, the greed will start to show. Thanks Rich! It has to be hard on a company like Hpi still recovering from their own issues. An interesting thought is Traxxas trying to grow their business by buying out companies or forcing them under. As to the patents? There are only so many ways some thing can be done. When talking about greed, the consumer holds the cards of the credit variety in this case.

We can choose not to spend exuberant prices for kits and eventually, just like we see now, price drops will happen. This will certainly be a shake up but it will even out over time. If the major players start to hike up prices that will leave an opening for a new budget minded brand to form.

This is a cycle folks. As long as us hobbyist remain interested, the hobby will be there. Great article Rich. I agree with you on the people factor. Too often people will slam these companies and say good riddance to a brand. What about the employees and their families. This is a sad reality for too many people these days. I was a thirty year employee of Sears Canada so I know exactly how this situation feels. The times sure are changing and not for the better. Thank you for saying this.

This is just an indication of things to come. I see this as a few things all at once. The outside pressure from china and direct to consumer selling of brands. Which by the way is probably how it will be done across the board in less than 5 years. No matter what distributer they were using. And they are not happy that consumers are finding that they are selling things at premium prices that are sub quality.

And then force people to only buy their own branded accessory products. Traxxas needs to compete or get out of the way. I am afraid to order anything from Tower or Hobbico for fear that I will not get my product and never get my money back since bankruptcies alleviate debt.

Bye Felicia!!! They never had anything in stock. Stop breadboarding and soldering — start making immediately! Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site , learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.

It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound.

A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand. Have an amazing project to share? CircuitPython — The easiest way to program microcontrollers — CircuitPython. Well, Hobbico had to see this situation coming and should have tried to keep the company from going under. Sounds like poor management to me, I believe they could have done better. My Tower catalog had pages in it and my catalog has pages!

I always loved the discount coupon codes that Tower has and they are more than likely going away, I am a Tower Club member and I bet that is going away too.

I started flying in , the same year Tower started and have been buying from Tower ever since and I really hate that this happened, but, nothing stays the same. FLY RC. Sad day for employees. Hopefully we can keep these brands alive. First off i want to say its sad for any person that loses their job in any of the hobbico companies. Second i want to remind the people that commented that hobbico brands like arrma and axial might not have the racing pedigree of losi but they make good product and tower hobbies is awesome.

I still want to add a kraton to my rc collection. I just hope these brands and tower hobbies keep making and selling rc cars. Both of these two radio control giants have some weak brands and many strong ones and the main thing I am glad about is that Horizon is well run enough to buy out Hobbico and keep all these great brands alive.

Low times in the RC industry right now. Look in every magazine they are spending money. If I had bothered to wrangle with them, it would have been boxing it up and shipping it to them, and the time back.

And then them still charging me for it. They are not like vendors. Tower hobbies was the best!! Ez pay, the speed of their shipping,excellent customer service and best of all the coupon codes!!! Horizon is good but and I bought a few things from them but expect to pay full retail.

And coupon codes are a way to drive a business in to the ground also I loved hobbico but they did this to themselves unfortunately.