Dapol Teak Gresley coaches

TonyM · Post by **TonyM** » Thu May 31, 2007 10:56 am

Hi all you N Gauge guys who were looking forward to getting decent, authentic teak coaches from Dapol.
Do not hold your breath... There aint going to be any because they have dropped the ball and produced thousands of MAROON coaches which are not selling. Check Hattons or Signal Box prices they cant give them away and guess what , they are blaming us, the modeller, because according to Dapol that is what we wanted. I have it from the horses mouth that Teaks have been canned for the foreseeable future. I have requested a limited edition run or even unpainted bodies, but all to no avail so The Gods know when we are going to get some decent teak Gresley coaches and I bet they are scratching their heads.
Tony

Post by **richard** » Thu May 31, 2007 2:10 pm

I've heard this rumour before. But last time I looked at the Hattons website, they were not offering the full range of coaches & numbers, and looked to be selling out of the buffets - compare with the Collets which had wider availability.

If it is true, then I think they are mis-thinking things. They did not ask "how many would you buy?" but "which would you prefer?". So we had lots of transition era people voting for maroon but most will only buy 2-3. Compare to teak, where I think most of us would buy at least a full rake.

Richard

Atso · Post by **Atso** » Thu May 31, 2007 5:55 pm

I too have heard this rumour and agree with Richard that Dapol have misunderstood the market with this product. They have usually had a good marketing plan for their products but with this one they do not seem to have considered ever aspect of the market before deciding what to produce. I have bought a few Dapol coaches and repainted them, but the best price I've seen is £20 per coach and I'm not spending that kind of money on a complete rake just to have to repaint them.

As a result of the lack of a teak liveried coach, I am looking into cheaper methods of producing a rake of Gresley's and have knocked up a couple of mockup coaches out of cardboard (yes cardboard) using computer artwork. They might not have the level of detailing that Dapol’s coaches have but a 9p per coach body I'm not complaining!

This short answer from me here is, if Dapol produced teak Gresleys I would buy at least two rakes worth and a few more for conversion purposes.

If I remember correctly Dapol stated that over 1,000 people took part in the vote. If 40% of those people voted for the teak livery and would each buy a rake of say 6 coaches this would generate 2,400 sales for Dapol straight away.

My job involves me giving advice to multi million pound businesses on how to better run their companies so I guess it is easy for me (all of us really, I guess) to be armchair critics without having all the information that Dapol had when they chose the initial livery. However, if I was in their position now I would be seriously considering all the facts before deciding to either press on with production of a product that (possibly) isn't meeting the projected sales figure or cutting my loses and doing something new.

All we can do is ask Dapol to produce the teak liveried version and hope that they listen and do so.

I must apologise for a post that has become somewhat longer than I intended, I seem to have found my soap box today and have decided to stand on it!

TonyM · Post by **TonyM** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 12:07 am

Hi

I have the news direct from Dave Jones who is the production manager at Dapol the teaks are canned. I have been pestering him for some weeks now and the policy is to cancel any new gresleys until they sell enough maroon coaches to cover costs so no teaks and no blood and custard
Tony M

TonyM · Post by **TonyM** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 2:34 am

Hello Steve
I agree with you 20GBPounds is an awful lot to have to pay to then have to repaint. Dapol have certainly dropped the ball with this one and, we the modellers, are left waiting ..... in vain I think from the response I have had from Dapol. I like, you, would be buying 2 complete rakes and some extras but I am not going to buy to have to repaint and maroon are no good to me as I model 1930s. The only Dapol items I have bought is an M7 that I have converted to a G7 and an auto-coach that I have re numbered and North Easternised.
I agree we should be hassling Dave Jones at Dapol to produce teaks as stated in the catalogue. I think it is a very poor show and shows Dapol in a very poor light. They are not listening to the buying public. I have even joined the Dapol Nthusiasts club to see if that did any good but no I feel I gave wasted my money.

Tony M

Post by **richard** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 4:22 pm

I also suspect the "2-3 maroon" market is much more sensitive to the price - so now they'll buy one buffet, say, instead of 2-3.

Dapol could also make the teaks more viable by reducing the variety of numbers produced, also using a pre-order system (which I hear they're trying in OO). Pre-orders are popular with many of the US manufacturers. Wait until X are pre-ordered, then produce X+a percentage of models. If they sell out quickly, then repeat.

Richard