Anyone Have A History On Otaki Kits?

[oldcarfan]

Over the last year I've bought three Otaki 1/24th Porsche 911s at reasonable prices and they seem pretty well done for the time. I was wondering if anyone knew about the company or what happened to their molds. I'd really love to see the 911 reissued and even more, I'd love to get a copy of their Cheetah for a price that wasn't painful. Every time I've come across one of those it's in the $200-$300 range.

[Dave Van]

Fuzzy memory says Otaki mainly issued other company tools under license. I have some ARII kits that are the same as Otaki.....not sure who did them first.  And as quality varies wildly that makes sense. 

[jaymcminn]

Those second-tier Japanese companies passed molds around like crazy back then. Otaki, Doyusha, Nichimo, Nitto, Arii... there was a whole host of kits that some or all of these companies released at one time or another. As one company would fold, another company would buy the molds and rerelease the kit. I think most of the surviving molds would be held by Doyusha and Arii now. IIRC, Otaki folded in the early 80s. They tooled up the 1/12 Countach LP400/500 series, which is an excellent kit on par with Tamiya models of the time.

[89AKurt]

I probably shouldn't admit this, started the Lamborghini LM002 kit, it's super basic and I got myself painted into a corner.  I recently got a 1/12 Countach, looks super detailed but that's all I know.

[Jordan White]

Here's my old thread about the 1/12 car kits. Some of the pics aren't showing up anymore, but the info is still usable!

 

[Daddyfink]

I read somewhere that ARII bought out the molds from Otaki when they shut down in 1986. 

[vamach1]

From the few kits I have under the ARII or Otaki or Nichimo branding only the 1/16 and larger kits have opening hoods and engines.  Anything in 1/24 and smaller usually had an electric motor but I’m sure there are exceptions depending on the source of the molds.  The bodies are pretty accurate but the engines are not their strong point.

[Gramps46]

These are the only 2 Otaki I have and was pretty satisfied with each.  The Corvette I had to modify to get what I wanted and the Capri I have yet to get around to paint and assembly.

[stavanzer]

 

Sorry, That I can tell you nothing about the cars, as I have never owned any of those. However, I do know this much.

Otaki was one of the first Japanese Model Companies to fully embrace 1/48 scale WW2 aircraft. In their day, Otaki's WW2 Fighters were some of the best out there. The had engraved panel lines on their airplane kits 10-15 years before any other company, and often included a full colour side view painting in the box as a helpful guide., and they were one of the first to offer multiple markings for the subject in the same box. So, Otaki (and later Arii) WW2 Planes are still decent kits 50 years on.

 

[Luc Janssens]

2 hours ago, vamach1 said:

From the few kits I have under the ARII or Otaki or Nichimo branding only the 1/16 and larger kits have opening hoods and engines.  Anything in 1/24 and smaller usually had an electric motor but I’m sure there are exceptions depending on the source of the molds.  The bodies are pretty accurate but the engines are not their strong point.

I have their US spec Mercedes, and the plan is to mix it with the ex Esci kit.

[stitchdup]

Might some of the molds be with heller? I'm sure i've seen heller versions of some of the 1/24 kits

[oldscool]

4 hours ago, stavanzer said:

 

Sorry, That I can tell you nothing about the cars, as I have never owned any of those. However, I do know this much.

Otaki was one of the first Japanese Model Companies to fully embrace 1/48 scale WW2 aircraft. In their day, Otaki's WW2 Fighters were some of the best out there. The had engraved panel lines on their airplane kits 10-15 years before any other company, and often included a full colour side view painting in the box as a helpful guide., and they were one of the first to offer multiple markings for the subject in the same box. So, Otaki (and later Arii) WW2 Planes are still decent kits 50 years on.

 

I have built several of the planes and not only are the panel lines engraved but they are so finely engraved that they rival some of the modern tooled kits. The decals sucked however. I still have the nice color profiles that came with them.

Edited September 22, 2022 by oldscool

[Spottedlaurel]

I have a couple in the current stash:

Can't say about the wheels, as I was given it without them. The bodyshell looks OK, but panel lines quite shallow. The bumpers have separate black and chrome parts to represent the different materials.

Ignoring the Daihatsu, I got this Toyota for a reasonable price. Seems pretty decent to me. Has opening doors but alloy wheels rather than the wires shown on the box art.

Both the above are designed to be motorized, they include an FA130E motor and wiring, but at least they have full depth interiors unlike some of the Doyusha 1:24 range. The battery compartment is within the engine bay, so as typical for many Japanese kits of thi era they don't have an engine.

I used to have this Skyline R30. Certainly a step or two up from Fujimi's miserable attempt at the same car, and at least on a par with Tamiya's version if not better - I recall it having separate bumpers, for example.

[Straightliner59]

This one has one of the wheel/tire sets they also released separately. There were four different wheel sets (all the tires were the Radial T/As). There was a set of slots, the "Vector" type, pictured above. I can't recall what the other two were. Later, they were re-released by Arii. They were very nice wheels and tires!

[Luc Janssens]

17 hours ago, Spottedlaurel said:

I have a couple in the current stash:

Can't say about the wheels, as I was given it without them. The bodyshell looks OK, but panel lines quite shallow. The bumpers have separate black and chrome parts to represent the different materials.

Ignoring the Daihatsu, I got this Toyota for a reasonable price. Seems pretty decent to me. Has opening doors but alloy wheels rather than the wires shown on the box art.

Both the above are designed to be motorized, they include an FA130E motor and wiring, but at least they have full depth interiors unlike some of the Doyusha 1:24 range. The battery compartment is within the engine bay, so as typical for many Japanese kits of thi era they don't have an engine.

I used to have this Skyline R30. Certainly a step or two up from Fujimi's miserable attempt at the same car, and at least on a par with Tamiya's version if not better - I recall it having separate bumpers, for example.

Remember having that one as a child, moterised so go Round and Round and Round.....

[cobraman]

Here as an example is their 1/12 scale Mustang . Overall not too bad but as Rex has said the engine is not very detailed . This kit at one time had a motor and working lights . This kit did not have those features . 

[steveracer]

Here are two that I have, one in 1/10 scale.  The body proportions all look pretty good on these two cars, perhaps I will get into the details later, or better yet, build the darn things!

[Bob Ellis]

I have the Otaki 1972 Thunderbird

[WGaree]

i’d like to see that Daihatsu Midget II kit reissued 

[niteowl7710]

12 hours ago, WGaree said:

i’d like to see that Daihatsu Midget II kit reissued 

Fujimi has occasionally offered a Midget II both in pick up and panel van form. I'm not sure it's necessarily that same kit or not as I've never personally seen the older version. But Fujimi did wind up with some of the Nitmo and Mitsuwa tooling over the years.

[Daddyfink]