Justin Porter

Wow. Way to really scrape the bottom of that barrel, Round 2.

Absolutely. MAYBE if DaimlerChrysler had played nice in the late 90's/early 00's with licensing fees on Chrysler you would have seen Tamiya release a kit of the Daytona winning Oreca-Viper GTS-R but that's about as "international broad appeal" as the Viper ever got. It's a bit of a bummer because at that time you did see Tamiya kits of McLaren-Mercedes F1 cars and Mercedes DTM cars, but not Chrysler products.

Tamiya does very well with American subjects but primarily in the more lucrative air and armor segments in the hobby. I've sold a TON of their all-new for 2019 1/48th scale P-38F/G Lightning. Tamiya generally does about 4 to 10 new tool kits a year across their whole line and usually only one to three of those are cars because cars just don't represent the sales that air and armor do. With that in mind, they're always going to choose either the most globally appealing (LaFerrari, 300SL Gullwing) or the most domestically appealing (A90 Supra, NSX) car to produce. You might luck out with Nunu, though. They're being very aggressive with their lineup of GT3 kits and enough vocal builders with open wallets might actually convince them to kit a C8-R.

Not going to argue there. It's definitely not the Tamiya F1 crowd that's at my counter simpering and stewing about drug and department store prices from 50 years ago, but I didn't want to be too pointed.

Fixed it for you there, Luc.

According to distributor Stevens International, current Round 2 MSRP on their AMT '69 Chevelle is $30.95 while Revell's MSRP on their upcoming in July '69 Chevelle is $26.95. True, decades of cheap secondhand AMT '69 Chevelles are out there, but new on the hobby shop shelf there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to buy the AMT '69 Chevelle.

Being an old Aurora tool, it's a bit of a weird homunculus of MkI and MkII with most of the details being sheer guesswork given that the kit was tooled while the car was still being refined on track. Even the contemporary IMC kit outshines the Aurora in just about every respect, but with the existence of the excellent Fujimi MkII kit, there's simply no reason to bother with the Aurora tooling.

I'm always psyched to see one of your builds, Alex, but admittedly this time I'm following primarily because this is one of those "just what DOES that one look like built up?" kits. I always vaguely recall it being in the Tamiya catalog but I never saw it on a shop shelf or saw pictures of build-ups like some sort of mirage.

Lovely build!

Should be a fascinating build. I see the Aoshima long tail kit built so much more often than the Fujimi short tail or street car.

That really does look amazing. Always great to see one of the Monogram Classics built.

Looks great! Those Zero paints really nail down the Gulf hue.

Just finished this Tamiya 1/24th scale Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4. It's painted in TS-47 Chrome Yellow, with Fujimi 18" Sportec wheels in AK Real Color Gunmetal. There's a few glitches here and there but it was meant as a fun side project from some of my more involved builds.

So, this popped up in the "Future Releases" section of one of my distributors, with a TBA on release date and a surprisingly reasonable $249.95 expected MSRP. Judging by the inset image, this may simply be a reissue of the Tamiya kit, possibly with updated decals. Given how long it's been since the kit was available it will still be a welcome return. Who knows, it might be Ebbro's toe in the water for 1/12th scale kits of their own.

Looks like it turned out pretty well!

I would have to say those results are worth the fight.

Not one of my favorites to work with. I did this Nova as a commissioned body for a local slot car drag racer and all it seemed to be was misery eliminating mold lines and block sanding to try and get some semblance of smoothness out of the panels. No amount of sanding seemed to get the grille to line up in a satisfactory way, and every pass with the flexifiles meant that much less surface for glue, meaning that to make the front end sturdy enough for drag racing duty I ended up with a puddle of epoxy in each front fender. It's a nicely proportionate body, and the detail is quite solid, but I wouldn't build one for myself.

I've never understood the "Moebius = Tamiya" comparison. For certain, Moebius has lovely detail and engraving, but at the same time I want to grab their tooling staff by the shirt and scream at them "UNDERGATES!!!"

I have a fair number of parts set aside for a planned replica of Mark Donohue's 1973 Sunoco DX Eagle. I have two decal sheets (one Fred Cady, one Indycals), a resin rear wing, a copy of the AMT Olsonite Eagle and the Patrick Eagle, and I keep taking it off the shelf, doing a bit of sanding or test fitting, and putting it right back because I'm not happy with it.

There is only one company that I have leveled the "overpriced" complaint at, and it most certainly isn't Revell. In fact, my exact statement regarding Revell on the previous page was "Revell I congratulate for keeping prices as low as they have while still creating new tooling like the astonishing new Land Rover." I also, on the prior page, commented that Tamiya DID have a recent period of exorbitant pricing on new tooling to which they have corrected. For a stretch, they were pricing themselves to the same scheme as Dragon does in armor kits. I don't believe Tamiya can do no wrong. I do believe that Tamiya is much more consumer focused as a brand than most others.

You could also point to the Tamiya 1/24th scale Lotus Seven for a Tamiya 80's release that really sets the bar high. Honestly, having built one recently, a modern Revell kit that I would actually point to as being comparable in terms of engineering would be the Kurtis Midgets.

I started this build as somewhat of a "breather" because I have two planes on my bench (both 1/72nd, a Hasegawa SR71 Blackbird commissioned by my father-in-law and a Special Hobby Short Sunderland MkV) that are positively pummeling me. It's a very basic build, with the only deviation from stock being a set of 18" Sportec Mono 10 wheels by Fujimi that I painted AK Real Colors Gunmetal. Otherwise it's painted in a variety of Vallejo, Tamiya, and AK colors, with the body being done with Tamiya rattle can Chrome Yellow. The color choice was actually at my wife's insistence because - as she pointed out - there are no yellow cars on my shelf.

Bear's repeating X3 and design a good kit first, price it second. Those Tamiya Ford GT's aren't exactly gathering dust on shop shelves.

Oh I agree entirely. Moebius, I feel, is sitting right about where they should on price point. Revell I congratulate for keeping prices as low as they have while still creating new tooling like the astonishing new Land Rover. Tamiya is offering excellent products at their price point (for the most part) and isn't pricing out of step with the rest of the hobby and is even beating competitors on some examples. Heck, in the realm of 1/20th scale F1 kits they're by far and away the price leaders compared to Fujimi and Ebbro.

Absolutely! In fact, here's a fun sampling of Tamiya 1/24th scale auto kits that currently sit UNDER the upcoming '64 Olds F85 kit's MSRP according to my wholesale distributor. Porsche 959 $22.50 (kit number 24065) R32 Skyline GTR $22.50 (kit number 24090) 1966 VW 1300 Beetle $30.00 (kit number 24136) Toyota Supra $28.00 (kit number 24123) Now, granted, those do lend some leverage to the "Why no full engine?" argument as they all are full detail kits, but they're also older tooling from either the 80's or 90's. Still nice to build with, but nothing like their kits of the past decade. It's also worth mentioning that for a time Tamiya went positively BERSERK with their price-point as evidenced by kits like their Lexus LFA or Aston Martin DBS, but for the past five years or so they've concentrated on restraining themselves to come back to a more competitive spot. I'd say probably either the 300SL Gullwing or the new NSX were when they started to come back down to Earth.