[Espeefan]

Licensing is a make or break deal, I think. Time was when there wasn't much concern about licensing, but these days everyone is getting really protective of their brand names. A perfect example of this is model railroading. As far as I know, models of locomotives offered in various railroad paint schemes never required licensing. Then one day Union Pacific required everything with their name on the side of it to be licensed. Not only that, but they also required licensing for all the old railroads they bought out in the past. So not only are they protecting their own name, but the name of serveral other railroad companies that do not even exist anymore.

I heard a story about Caterpillar like that too. I read that Caterpillar bought the General Motors locomotive division. That division is called Electro-Motive Division. Or EMD for short. Once Cat got their hands on EMD, a private website run by a man who had multiple old EMD manuals and information posted was contacted by Cat and was basically told he must remove all the EMD logos, manuals, and anything else related to their products, or else. Meanwhile, it never bothered EMD one bit. But it bothers Caterpillar. I guess it's their right, but it just seems like sometimes they go a little overboard. Probably just the way of the future.

I guess licensing doesn't bother me, but one has to wonder if PACAR flat out refused to even work with Tamiya on liscensing, or if they wanted to much money for it. I mean come on, Tamiya has gotten the licensing from MAN, Mercedes Benz, Toyota, Mazda, Volvo, Ford, Chevy, and many others, but they won't do it for an American brand truck?

Then again, it may not even be a issue of obtaining or spending the money for licensing, but rather that Tamiya just doesn't believe the North American RC truck segment is popular enough, nor worth the cost/effort to give us a North American scale truck, like they do for the Europeans.