Interesting discussion...
I can only speak for what I see coming from Scalextric in the new year and stack it up against what I had seen at my previous company over the past few years.
We will be doing a new US mold every year for the foreseeable future. That's something that
no other company has done in the past 5 years and unless something radically changes... they won't be doing that. I have in hand the newest car aimed pretty much only at the US market. I have suggested something... out of the box... for 2020 that's
already going to the mold makers. With a car after that already planned. The researcher/product manager for cars and the manager for sets and I work closely to try to get as many US cars each year in the line as we can. This will continue each year.
I'm not going to say that we're going to radically change how we make/design cars to have them be aimed at the hobbyists...(we should not, and it would never be something I would suggest) we will continue to offer a good starting point slot car at a competitive price.
There's no need to badmouth anyone as has been previously stated, all you have to do is look at recent history of car releases to project where each company is going.
I will reach out to more clubs to set up local, club races with our cars to hopefully win over more of the slot racers out there. If you're a member of a club in the US (sadly we don't yet directly distribute in Canada) feel free to reach out to me and I'll get you some cars for your club to race...
dave.kennedy@hornby.us