I seem to recall that Lada purchased the entire production line - factory, tooling, etc, of the Fiat Panda (4WD) and shipped everything back to Russia. A few months later the ‘new’ Lada hit the streets (even though Fiat had since stopped producing the car after many successful years of production).
Maybe if the Italians drunk as much Vodka as the Russians then the Fiat Panda would not have been so popular in Italy. Anyone who has dated an Italian beauty would know that Italian women can be both expensive and a ‘hand full’, but then at the time it seemed that it was worth the trouble and expense. In hindsight, would not revisit the experience. Why is it that one baulks at paying out for repairs for a run of the mill car and yet continues to dip into their pockets for an equally unreliable exotic European ‘thoroughbred’ and consider it money well spent?
In so far as buying Bachmann because of their ‘lifetime warranty’, then for many warranty repairs are simply not realistic. If one lives outside the continental United States, then the cost of shipping a broken locomotive, even for ‘free’ warranty repairs, costs more than one could purchase another locomotive for (if purchased online from the States. For those who believe that Bachmann are relatively cheap, then in Australia there are still dealers selling 45-tonner diesels for $850.00 Aud (almost on parity with the U.S. dollar now) and over $1000.00Aud for a Shay (38 tonner) and around $1500.00Aud for a 55-tonner 3-truck Shay. At these prices the prospect of buying a potential basket case is too daunting.
On another point, how is it that Bachmann is able to supply Christmas sets to Sam’s Club each year for such ridiculously low prices (going on Sam’s Clubs MSRP) and yet expects that the general buying public will pay full retail price on the same item in other roadnames?
