Certainly Schumacher are known for IMO, fairly long cycle times between new designs. Each of the SX cars were evolutions, not really a new model, just as they had done previously with the Cat 2000 series and even earlier with the original Cat series, which had the longest product cycle of any cat (86-93 effectively).
There are certainly a lot of similarities between the K1 and the 511 though, but thats to be expected really, considering Lee's long term success at Uk National level with the Tamiya car plus the fact that most 4wd buggies now have, since the days of the J-Concepts BJ4, settled upon the XX-4 front and B4 rear suspension designs, only making subtle tweaks to the geometry since.
For me personally, the K1 improves on the 511 in the central bulkhead area, this is vastly simplified and improved compared to the tamiya, and overall I think the K1's simplicity will win it a lot of fans.
Thank goodness they've gone away from purple too
