How are Aoshima/Fujimi/Hasegawa kits?

[dmthamade]

Model shop I frequent has a decent selection of car kits by these manufacturers. They concentrate on German, Italian, Ferraris, and Japanese cars, which i'm OK with. Question is, how are they as far as fit/finish/engineering? Done Tamiya kits and have a couple in the stash, quality is great, dryfit is excellent. Are the listed manufacturers equal?

Don

[TarheelRick]

Depending on the kit you buy, many of them are on par with Tamiya.  Some were designed for electric motors, and have been sort of converted to static kits, and similar to Tamiya most are curbside.  Hope this helps.

[afx]

Very broad question but in general yes all the listed manufactures are equally to Tamiya quality in my humble opinion.  Specific kits from each manufacturer can vary but again in general high quality manufacturers. 

[Fat Brian]

The best option with those kits is to do your research and know what your buying before you put your money down.

[Jordan White]

Aoshima kits are IMO second to Tamiya in terms of quality, and are generally consistent in detail and ease of assembly. Fujimi tends to be hit or miss when it comes to detail. Their Suzuki Jimmy kit builds up really nice and is on par with Aoshima, while their Land Cruiser 80 kit seemed to scale out around 1/21 or 1/22 scale and was meant to be motorized, which meant poor chassis and shallow interior.

[DukeE]

Many of the Japanese vending sites have pics of instructions and kit parts. Search here too via google, lots of builders of these here. Price check them too, US MSRP is pretty high compared to what price is including shipping from JP. Can pick up at swap meets for less too if that's an option. Usually fun to build, but check. Avoid Arii, not common anyway. Fujimi Enthusiast series are pretty killer kits, mostly Ferrari/Lambo/356 and pre-95 Porsches. 

[SfanGoch]

Peruse the various auto kits and instructions at Hobby Search.

[martinfan5]

5 hours ago, dmthamade said:

Model shop I frequent has a decent selection of car kits by these manufacturers. They concentrate on German, Italian, Ferraris, and Japanese cars, which i'm OK with. Question is, how are they as far as fit/finish/engineering? Done Tamiya kits and have a couple in the stash, quality is great, dryfit is excellent. Are the listed manufacturers equal?

Don

I am not one for self promoting, but my Youtube channel is basically for these types of kits, check my signature for the name of my channel if you are interested.

But also, the above poster Joe provided a great link , that can be very helpful at times deciding if you want to get a kit certain kit.

Edited December 24, 2019 by martinfan5

[Dave Van]

Some of the kits from those brands can be from the 70's and were motorized.....so it varies greatly. 

Kinda like 'how much to cut down a tree??' Depends on tree......this answer depends on which kit.

[Chuck Most]

Which specific kit from which specific manufacturer? You can't honestly expect a concise answer when you're talking about four decades worth of subject matter from three different manufacturers. The only general statement I can make is that the more recently the kit was released, the better it will be, which is true for pretty much any kit manufacturer. 

[dmthamade]

Sorry about the really late reply. Thanks all for the feedback and ideas, guys. I get that the older kits may be not up to current stuff, been doing aircraft for the last 20-30 years so i understand this and about specific kits. Concentrating on these manufacturers as the quality of the Revell/AMT/Polar Lights kits are known to me. Tamiya quality is great in aircraft/armor and as i've experienced in car kits is also great. Fujimi/Aoshima/Hasegawa car kits are unknown to me, reviews and builds on Youtube help a lot, better still is from modellers that have BTDT. I'll probably stick to newer kits, ask about older kits if needed. I have seen your Youtube channel, martinfan5, very informative!! I already go to Hobby Search for aircraft stuff, did see where there are a lot more kits available than what i've seen, IOW new ways to lighten my wallet.

Don

 

 

[oldcarfan]

They are like AMT or Revell in that they reissue kits from tools that may be 5 years old or 40 years old, therefore you may get a state of the art kit or one that is just a step above a garage resin kit. Most of the ones that were tooled in the last 30 years or so are good though. Some of the older ones were designed to be battery powered and therefore have little interior detail.