niteowl7710

Running plastic through a diecast mold is feasible and has been done before, however the results can be at any end of the spectrum. Take Revell as an example. The '58 Impala is a pretty nice kit despite it's diecast roots, the '70 Challenger is a slab-sided disaster area.

It was supposed to be a "half-run" from the original MK issue, which would be round about 3k of them.

Nope looks like the civilian vehicles for the show are a "Tamiya Factory" assembled version of the 2016 NSX (in white should anyone care). They sank their first 1/2 half tooling into a new 1/6 Honda Motorcycle, which isn't exactly NEW-new news as they announced it at Nuremburg in February.

Since Aoshima packages their wheels in groups of 4 - 4 different wheels per mold - the Tuned Parts Wheels 02, 03, & 04 will also have the same tires Those are BBS RSII, BBS DTM, and Watanabe RS 8 Spoke wheels. I mean tires not withstanding one really can't go wrong with BBS or Watanabe rims, especially for $8 a set.

Most people got for...

Aoshima is next up tonight, and the vast majority of their stuff is the continued repackaging existing kits and wheels into their three new marketing lines - The Model Car, The Tuned Model Car, and The Tuned Parts But there are three tooling updates that merit further inspection 2015 Toyota Crown Athlete. This is the worst kept secret in town, Aoshima has been making Crown Royal Saloon & Crown Athlete kits in pairs since 2002. So with the refreshed Crown Royal kit coming out at the end of 2016, this was a foregone conclusion. New front fascia parts and new taillights highlight the newly tooled pieces Lamborghini Diablo GT-R - This is the race spec version of the Diablo GT. Also an open secret since the GT was announced, this is about 75% new parts sharing only the basic chassis architecture and engine block with the street car. Only 30 of these were ever made to race in their own little ione-make race series. Lastly one that I think a lot of people would have expected a couple of years ago when this relationship was announced, but instead Aoshima worked on issuing the classic car designs they were doing instead. We finally render a bunch of really expensive Hobby Design transkits moot with...the Liberty Walk Nissan GT-R.

Best thing about that 2002 is the release date is tentatively 6/27, so it's not even a long wait.

I heard that Hobbico pulled them off the market and hoarded them to increase demand upon "reissue". I wish I was making that up...

So it's getting to be around that time of year again. The actual show itself is May 11th-14th, but the pre-orders for new products are starting to trickle out, starting with Hasegawa. In addition to several off the shelf reissues, including the AE101 Corolla Levin Gr. A race car with corrected race suspension, there are three kits that merit a quick overview do to tooling variations. Honda N360T (aka NII Touring) - The next variation of the N360 tooling, the only new piece here is the front grille. Next up the Suzuki Jimny JA11-1. This is the next variant of this tooling, which is actually a back-dating to 1990 (the first issue of the kit was a 1995). Getting a new front grille & bumper, new mirrors, along with a new stick shift & steering wheel. Last but not least is the NEW tool kit for the show. What was it again...oh right the double deuce to Revell of Germany for dragging it's feet forever on this subject matter BMW 2002tii Now I'm sure that the griping will begin as soon as I hit "Submit Topic" that it's a curbside. But it will include two different style bumper guards, tail lights, and mirrors to make an early('71) & late('73) version. Also know as we sit here in talking about these, that N360 is the THIRD variant of that tooling, so there will be additional 2002s in the pipeline - like the post-'73 Turbo.

I feel your frustration with the M6, but since it's a new company (NuNu Hobby) that's doing the kit, I'm willing to give them a lot more "leash" than I would an established company like Revell.

There's shooting yourself in the foot to save a nickel's worth of plastic.

Delayed with the rest of the 1Q stuff, it's currently listed as a Late May release.

They already reissued that kit a few months ago.

But, but, but, the Chinese seized and destroyed the tooling, the Internet said so!!

The ordering system from Great Planes still says "Late June" for the Suburban. The MSRP is $26.95.

Or the 18+ designation means that they will be sold in Hobby Shops only, no Hobby Lobby or Michael's.

The key question remains, what of this kit are we getting? It's long been the story that the body was "destroyed" to make it into the flip-nose. So getting original 3n1 back would require a significant retool of the cab, unless the flip-nose was a separate tooling and they've been sitting on the kit for 42 years figuring nobody would a '75/'76 Datsun.

This intrigues me - MPC-8721/25 1975 Datsun Pickup Truck$31.95TBA Considering this kit was perma-modified into a flip-nose tow truck, that was subsequently made into the Monster Truck kit that was just reissued a few months ago, what are we doing with this? Another run as the flip-nose tow truck street machine? Are they actually going to fix it back to stock, that would sort of eliminate it ever being the monster truck again (not that anyone would actually care). Edit - Sorry I didn't check in the Truck Basement before posting this...

The only real difference between the Cara and the AZ-1, both on the 1:1 and the kits is Suzuki put some square fog lamps in the front bumper of their car. These little cars were a 90s revival of sorts of the 60s era Japanese little sports cars like the Honda S800, Toyota S800, and Datsun Fairlady 311SR. All of which are also available as kits from Fujimi, also Tamiya makes both the Honda S600 & S800.

Yeah they're probably the "press" kits that end up going out to here and Scale Auto and whatnot, but for the average Joe (aka not the 1% fanatics here), these videos end up showing things people can't actually go buy in the month they say they should be able to - caveat being the '57 Ford/Super bug did wind up getting into some distribution right before the end of March.

These videos...I know they're not doing them to an informed audience, but still there are SIX kits on the April release sheet for Round2. They only show three kits, one of which (The Stroker McGurk thing) isn't even on the sheet for this month. April Releases - MPC Coca Cola Vending Machine Show Rod AMT Mack R685ST VW "Superbug" Gasser '57 Ford Silhouette Show Car 1/20 '94 Camaro Convertible - former Lindberg

Well if you know your Mid-90s Japanese "A, B, C's" - the three Kei mid-engine Sports Roadsters made by Mazda (AutoZam A1), Honda (Beat), and Suzuki (Cappuccino) then this kit and the car belong to that trio. The AutoZam was actually made by Suzuki for Mazda so the Cara is just their "Badge Engineered" version of the car. It's a "rare" kit insomuch as Aoshima has never reissued it (to the best of my knowledge) and not a lot of people even know it exists in the first place. Their AutoZam kit has 3 variations in 4 boxing's and 3 of the boxings have or will be reissued by the end of April. The Beat & Cappuccino are getting reissued once again in April as well. The Copen is also a little Kei roadster, but was made between 1997-2007 while the A, B, Cs lived a brief span between 1992-1995.

You have to remember though, that on the short term at least, Moebius (Revell, Round2, et al) don't really care whether or not your LHS can sell the stuff or not, so long as THEY can sell it to the front line distribution network. Moebius said via their FB page at least once that there would be no new tooling announcements coming any time soon because of all of the backlog of existing variations they haven't even got to yet. 4x4 Ford, Ventura, NASCAR Pontiac, Satellite Drag, AWB Mopar Drag, Comet variants, etc...there's a good half dozen or more kits still stuck in the pipeline for which tooling the tooling is already cut.