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Location Worthing, UK
We received this news today from The Hobby Company Limited - the UK distributor for Carrera...
Quote:The Hobby Company wish to advise that from 31/12/20 we will cease to distribute the Carrera slot & Carrera RC ranges in the UK.
Carrera’s owner Stadlbauer was purchased in May 2019 by Quantum. Quantum is also the Parent Company for Revell Gmbh, who own Revell in the UK.
In January 2020 the new Management made the decision to combine various elements of the Stadlbauer & Revell businesses. One such synergy is to be the UK market, where they consider it is more appropriate to have Revell, selling and investing in marketing of all Group brands, rather than continuing to work with The Hobby Company as a Distributor for just the Carrera brand.
Carrera items will continue to be available from The Hobby Company until the end of December – with any out of stock items still obtainable via special order by us on a 10-14 day lead time from Carrera in Austria.
After 1st January Carrera will be available from Revell UK.
Although this news is not a surprise, it's sad to say goodbye to the Hobby Company, who have been fine custodians for Carrera in the UK and supporters of SlotRacer Online. We wish everyone at the Hobby Company all the best with their many other model kit and toy brands.
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Location Norfolk, England
Only to be expected with the Revell takeover of Carrera but very disappointing. The
Hobby Co and its boss, Peter Binger, are giants of the slot car scene. They were the initial importers of Ninco into the UK and were extremely supportive of the NSCC during my time as editor of the magazine. I received so many Ninco cars for review/competition prizes that I almost couldn't cope with the sheer volume and had to ask Peter to tone it down a bit. They have also done a superb job raising the profile of Carrera in this country and this seems like a kick in the teeth for their efforts.
Peter Binger (right) at Slot Rally GB 2006
They do have many other hobby products in their portfolio so hopefully this shouldn't be too bad a hit to their overall business but it is definitely a loss to the slot car world.
(This post was last modified: 16th-Oct-20, 12:39 PM by
CMOTD.)
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One could look at it that as they are free from the big name Carrera they might be able to turn to other, smaller, niche products?
SCX is coming back, so is Ninco.. albeit slowly and they may be waiting for a Brexit decision...
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Location Overijse, Belgium
The last thing Revell did was shut down their slot cars in 2014....... I wonder.
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