I think the whole mike car thing has been made pretty clear directly from Lionel. While the mike cars were very highly accurate models, the intention was to move production away from China. This was one product that got caught in the move, there might be more, I don't know. According to Ryan (maybe Dave) the tooling was the hold-up and still is.
The last thing I remember Ryan stating was that for the project to move forward, new (read expensive) tooling was going to be needed, and that was not going to happen anytime soon. Maybe moving from China is not as easy as some would have us think.
My guess is that Lionel really tried and wanted to use the most excellent tooling already available and held off on making new products until all avenues to get the old tooling back in use, were exhausted.
As much as it might hurt, maybe it's time to just cancel the car.
Charlie
