It appears Hooben is gone.

[Rubicon99]

Seems Hooben known for their highly detailed and kind of pricey 1/16 and up tanks is out of business. They made beautiful looking tanks, but which always had running and durability issues. Not to mention their CS was spotty at best.

Even with their product quality and CS issues it's sad to see an RC tank manufacturer disappear. Hope they come back with a new direction focusing on quality and good CS.

[SoCalBobS]

They did have some unique products.

[keilau]

It is sad. www.hooben-store.com website no longer exists.

The "Hooben Hobby" page also closed on Amazon.

twin-horse.de continue to sell Hooben tank. No mention of the manufacturer closed door.

[tank_me]

https://hooben.com/ is still working, but the site looks sketchy. The currency dropdown has "US Dollar" written "US DOllar". Their FB page and Feng's page are still up, but neither have posted in like a year. If they are dead, it's their own fault for treating customers so bad. I wonder if someone like Dave from Forgebear would know more. I have noticed that they have had falling levels of inventory all over the place for the places that carried them.

Even if they were trying to relaunch the company, their reputation is beyond repair. It's like Loic from Field of Armor and Kitlinx. No matter what he does, he will always be known for bad business practices.

[Durahl]

Seems Hooben known for their highly detailed and kind of pricey 1/16 and up tanks is out of business. They made beautiful looking tanks...

I guess standards may vary from person to person but I found their Models to be about the ugliest mother****ers out there 🤔

When I first heard someone made an E-100 and Maus I was like: "Horee sheed! Must have!" until I saw their models with exposed Fasteners ALL OVER THE TANK and I immediately changed my mind to "Fine... I'll do it myself!"
The only thing I got from them were a set of Maus Tracks after I did my E-100 since I could no longer be bothered to go that route of making them myself anymore - And to be very honest... Even those look highly "meh" compared to the likes of Tamiya ones 🤨

[Rubicon99]

I guess standards may vary from person to person but I found their Models to be about the ugliest mother****ers out there 🤔

When I first heard someone made an E-100 and Maus I was like: "Horee sheed! Must have!" until I saw their models with exposed Fasteners ALL OVER THE TANK and I immediately changed my mind to "Fine... I'll do it myself!"
The only thing I got from them were a set of Maus Tracks after I did my E-100 since I could no longer be bothered to go that route of making them myself anymore - And to be very honest... Even those look highly "meh" compared to the likes of Tamiya ones 🤨

Appears you never got to see first hand their newer releases. Their Merkava, Leopard 1, newer T55, Sherman E8 and others are by all standards compared to Tamiya, HengLong, TongDe, Mato, Torro and Haya far superior in stock finished appearance and details hands down.

Materials, electronics and gearbox wise they were lacking and had issues. But their details and factory paint were industry leading.

They were expensive, they had very poor CS, their tanks were made for indoor hard floor running and looking pretty sitting on a shelf. Anything more and you could expect fairly rapid breakage.

But they looked good.

[cleong]

I have their first launch effort a T-55 and it demonstrated Hooben’s aspirations to match Tamiya in product even down to the packaging. However quality was spotty and quite a lot of the first run kits had sprues with incompletely molded parts. It referenced Tamiya heavily - for example I was able to fit a Tamiya elevation gearbox into the turret and the gearshafts in the gearbox could be replaced with Tamiya spares (I had to do that because of the malleable Hooben metal that bent).

They followed that up with the Elefant, which seemed a little better, and then a re-release T-55 after the market went dry for a while due to "worn out molds", which I am told was much better in quality than the original.

Through all of this, the E-100 and Maus that they teased right at the start of their entry into tanks remained virtually vaporware with only a few guys eventually getting their tanks but problems as part of the package.

Further down the line, Hooben had a resurgence in the past five years with a plethora of new products including a Leopard 2A4 I wanted so much. These were primarily 3D printed on metal hulls but the automotive components wouldn't stand up to actual RC use (like Rich Johnson's Merkava).

Hooben has frankly more tanks that I wanted than Tamiya, like the T-55, Leopard 2A4, Cromwell. Their product planning department knew my heart, but the design and manufacturing department let the company down.

[Kernel_Clinq]

https://hooben.com/ is still working, but the site looks sketchy. The currency dropdown has "US Dollar" written "US DOllar". Their FB page and Feng's page are still up, but neither have posted in like a year. If they are dead, it's their own fault for treating customers so bad. I wonder if someone like Dave from Forgebear would know more. I have noticed that they have had falling levels of inventory all over the place for the places that carried them.

Even if they were trying to relaunch the company, their reputation is beyond repair. It's like Loic from Field of Armor and Kitlinx. No matter what he does, he will always be known for bad business practices.

I've no experience with the company, but OMG that website! Looks like designed in 1998, but for more bandwidth than dialup. The floating "RC Warships" element with the "x" you have to chase with your mouse is worse than the "Windows XP Cellphone" with broken "Call me" images. Only thing missing is blinking text and a midi soundtrack!

[MrChef]

I've no experience with the company, but OMG that website!

Yeah their website is garbage.

A few of us took advantage of a silly sale they had last year actually for their Tiger I model for $68. all in, including shipping. There's a thread on the other board about it.

The details are quite good. The electronics are laughable. The quality of plastic is lightweight/flimsy. The build quality is poor at best. Things just fall off of it when I look at it. But it's planned for a rebuild down the road eventually.

[Vintage Racer]

I really wanted the Leo 1A5, but I was told they are gone as well. I have a T-55, and it is awful. No where near Tamiya in any respect. Other may feel differently. I didn't even finish it it so disappointing.