fumi

For the fender side mirror issue, both of your points apply. Before 1983, the Japanese traffic law stipulated that all outside mirrors must be mounted on the fender for locally produced car, but imported cars were exempted. The law was changed after years of protest from the Japanese manufacturers, but they remain popular choice for the taxis and company/official cars on the believe that the driver can keep the eyes on the road ahead, and more importantly avoid peeking at the passenger, when checking the mirrors. Uber's insurance terms are quite murky. The driver's own insurance will be voided when they accept fare from the passenger. Uber promises to cover the injury or death insurance to the passenger or 3rd party only from the time when the ride is taken in the app to the time the passenger arrives at the destination. They specifically exclude damage to other vehicles or properties in an accident, and injury or death to the drivers. Incentive-wise, the fare is simply not enough to cover fuel and maintenance cost. Keeping a car is a major chore in big cities like Tokyo or Osaka, parking spaces are at a premium and you cannot register a car without proof of it. It is also far more convenient to take public transit, most major cities have a very extensive subway and train network, the smaller ones have very good bus or tram service. Meanwhile in the countryside everyone has a car and the demand for hired driving service is very low. And when the public transport stops running at night, taking a cab is actually a pleasant experience. The drivers are courteous and polite, they charge by the meter, and they don't deliberately take a longer route than necessary to drive up the fare.

There is one major point with fender mirrors on taxis and particularly chauffeur driven cars: the driver does not need to look over the passenger side to check the mirror. You won't find them on regular cars any more. Uber and Lyft will die in Japan before real taxis do. Even if we put away the legality and liability concerns, the incentive to drive for them is very low, especially in the cities. In here, unless you drive a Tesla you will not be able to breakeven.

Aoshima is aiming their snappers to first time modellers, parents getting their kids something quick and easy to build and especially people who are getting back into the hobby after decades of hiatus. It seems to be working fine so far. Fujimi's Car Next series cost more than a full detailed Tamiya kit while Aoshima's are selling for less than 1300 yen, roughly the same as two bowls of ramen. They are in entirely different markets.

You are discounting the line of six all new 1/32 snap kits they released since the end of 2017, which appears to be one of their upcoming focus. Still, releasing 2-3 new 1/24 molds every 2-3 years is not bad for a 2nd tier manufacturer like Aoshima. And for many of the reissues, they are able to bundle new parts to make them interesting (like the front lip for the AE86 Trueno and the aero bumper for the upcoming Initial D S13 Silvia).

If you ask me, the screaming chicken is too cheesy for anything other than the equally cheesy 2nd gen.

I wouldn't call it outsourcing, it is their own facility that they started in 1994. Used to be that the newest kits were molded in Japan and after they became 2-3 years old they got shipped to the Philippines for periodic reissue. I guess their work is good enough that even new tools are molded there now.

Dragon is alive and well in the military world, although they seem to be lost in their direction after the daughter took over the business a few years ago. Diversification into the miniature toy business did not work out and they have closed up all their local retail stores, leaving only one outlet shop. There was also a nasty fallout with their long term partner Hasegawa over cross wholesale distribution agreements. The Dragon line of E36 M3, 318ti and touring cars were collaboration with Hasegawa. The main chassis sprues were from Hasegawa's sedan kit and the model specific parts were tooled by Dragon. As they have completely pulled out of the model car business in the early 2000's and the fact that they depend on Hasegawa for 1/2 of the kit's content, there is almost no chance for them to be re-issued. Revell made their own 325i sedan street car with engine, which spawned the Alpina version. They have also reboxed Dragon's versions of the E36 which are curb side. Tamiya reboxed Revell's 325i sedan street car in the early 90's for the Japanese market only to compete with Hasegawa. That and the 850i were pulled out of the catalog soon after.

Right now I am far more excited by Beemax's announcement. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1318421358299394&id=139351649539710 Really looking forward to that A4.

Am I the only one who hates the standard US model kit box where they guarantee the body would warp by cramming it with the sprues in a single plastic bag and stuffing the whole shebang into a box that is barely too small? Glad they made the Cuda AAR. Even better it is released by ROG. That means I might actually be able to get one in my LHS without the ridiculous shipping charges.

The closest you can find are the DiOlex Production Lorinser. You will need to scratch build the center caps. DiOlex Production sells on eBay. Their quality is quite good.

In general Tamiya makes paint to sell their kits. It is hard to imagine them making paints that help sell others' kits, and by the same token no other Japanese kit manufacturer would list Tamiya paint code in their instruction.

Back in the 80's it was "close enough is good enough". Tamiya would have you paint every red car in TS-8 Italian Red. Along with the F-1 kit boom in the late 80's to the mid 90's, Tamiya started to formulate special paint to match the livery of their F-1 kits. They also made generic popular colours for Japanese cars like Mica Red and Gun Metal. Specialized colours to go with their regular car lineup started after 2000. Some of the more specific colours like the Pennzoil yellow, the Aston Martin racing green or the Toyota 86 orange were only offered as a no-number limited release.

If Shapeways does not charge for listing then I find it interesting that multiple vendors are discontinuing a vast amount of small parts in their catalog because they "cannot be printed affordably". If people really wanted that part they would have gladly paid for that few bucks increase. If they cannot afford it then they can simply not print it. The only reason I can think of is to avoid people whining about being gouged by the individual sellers, which seems quite plausible when you see modellers complaining about kit prices all the time.

Ghosn admitted that he got Nissan BoD to pass the motion to cover the FX contracts for non-Japanese directors "for the good of the company". He also admitted that Nissan Middle East paid his acquaintance around 1.6 billion yen for "legitimate services that was beneficial for the company", which mostly amounted to greasing up the dealings with government officials and business partners behind the scene. He also admitted that the Lehman Shock was something "no one could ever possibly foresee in their lifetime". For common folks like the many retirees here who got duped into buying the "very secure" Lehman Brothers mini bonds, the only choice would be to suck it up and see their retirement funds go down the drain. Yet if you are a high-flying executive, you can just ask the company to pay for your mistake, all for the sake of the company.

Based on what I read in Japanese and English media, this is part of what happened: 1. Ghosn admitted that he preferred to be paid in US dollars but Nissan would only pay him in Japanese yen, so he invested his salary in USD/JPY FX derivatives. His investment (or more fittingly, gamble) suffered huge losses in the financial crisis in 2008 and his bank asked him to put in additional collateral, or they would call his margin. 2. Ghosn had the Nissan board of director pass a resolution to authorize Nissan to enter into foreign exchange contracts "for the benefit of non-Japanese corporate officers and directors at no cost to the company." 3. Ghosn asked his acquaintance in Middle East for help. His acquaintance provided his bank a 3 billion yen "standby credit note". 4. There was an attempt to have Nissan head office to invest 3 billion yen to his acquaintance's company in Oman. This did not work out. 5. Nissan Middle East then paid his acquaintance's company 14.7 million US dollars (around 1.6 billion yen). Ghosn maintains this is for "critical services that substantially benefited Nissan."

If it is just a dimple I'd use GSI Mr Dissolved Putty. If it is really shallow I'd just dabble some Mr Surfacer 500 on it.

Beige is good. I am not particularly fond of colours that will potentially rub off to clothing in real life, so gold is out for me.

Polystyrene is 6 or PS. It is recyclable, just not profitable.

Those kits were planned at the tailend of the Mini-4WD boom, around 1993-94. Sale of the Mini-4WD funded all the interesting less profitable projects like the Caterhams, the annual 2 x F1 kits and the 60's classic cars. Once the Mini-4WD boom waned, there was no money to spare and the car line was drastically cut back. Word at the time was that the classic car kits sold far less than expected and the entire project was shelved, so Tamiya could concentrate their resources on the newly re-acquired Ferrari license. It was around that time that Mr. Kiya quit Tamiya and founded MMP, parent company of Ebbro. He was told there would be no more resources for the F1 kits and the classic sports car kits, 2 of his pet projects.

This is very well preventable, and no reason for it to happen in first place. All the entry points for the hacks were from the entertainment system. There is no need for the manufacturers to tie in the user electronics with the system electronics.

Ebbro's F1 kits are very nice. You can consider them as Tamiya+. Ebbro's owner worked for Tamiya for 30 years and was responsible for their F1 kits in the mid 80's to mid 90's and was project chief of the short-lived 1/43 diecast car line. When Tamiya scaled back their F1 line and changed their direction to simplified car kits, he left and started his own company to concentrate on subjects that interest him, mainly race cars and historic Japanese cars. In an interview he mentioned that when Mr. Tamiya heard about his desire and push to establish the 1/43 diecast project, he said that "if he wants to do this project so badly, he can always do it out of his own pocket". When he quit to start his own company, Tamiya gave him an extra large retirement package that footed Ebbro's first 3 diecast models.

The Fujimi Pantera is readily available.

Here you go. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=207460082655029&ref=content_filter

Easiest way is to use the contact form on the left of the web page. The fields are name, e-mail address, title and content of your inquiry. Mizorogi-san can speak English and takes PayPal. You can also find him on Facebook, his page is "Sports Cars Modeling".

They should have done that at least with modern subjects long ago. It was a major issue with their "tuner" line, instead of making them compatible with other kits of Japanese/European subjects, they had to make them in a scale that is noticeably dwarfed and aftermarket wheels from Aoshima and Fujimi wouldn't fit. Regarding Snake's idea, I think Aoshima and Hasegawa are doing it right: curbside with an open hood and some rudimentary under hood detail, and leave the engine to the aftermarket. I don't know how well it would work in a market where people proclaim they will not buy anything not full detailed, though.