One thing that, as someone recently interested in ship modelling is how the major manufacturers seem to focus so much on ships that were sunk, especially for WW2. As a Brit this seems especially noticable, the major manufacturers would have us believe that the only ships the Royal Navy had were HMS's Repulse, Prince of Wales and Hood! Is the only reason that Tamiya did an E Class Destroyer so that they could put it in their Battle of Malaya set?

Same thing goes for the Kreigsmarine and IJN (although granted, most of their capital ships *were* sunk). To be fair, Dragon and Trumpeter are releasing a lot of new USN kits.

Is this the manufacturers responding to consumer demand, or is it the tail wagging the dog?

Is it the Marilyn Monroe/James Dean/Elvis Presley/Kurt Cobain effect?

Does this mean we can expect to see a Trumpeter 1940 Ark Royal in 1/350?

Good question.. But it could be that these ships are just better know than others even famous so more people want to build them. same can be said for the USS Constitution and HMS Victory.

I think it has much to do with the fame thing. And also the way in which they went down...in a famous fight. Notice the HMS Royal Oak hasn't been Trumpetered or Tamiya'd yet (well not that i know of), despite being sunk? It didn't really go down in a great fighting blaze of glory.

Success seems to have little to do with it too. The two most successful German surface heavy ships were easily Scharnhorst and Gneisenau- successful raiding careers and even sinking an aircraft carrier, yet when it comes to a new tool Revell 1/350 kit they do Bismarck. And i'm sure their marketing people know exactly what they're doing too.