Fujimi Williams FW16

[Peter Lombardo]

I love building Hot Rods, Customs, Concepts and Pavement Pounding Street cars, but I have always really enjoyed the Tamiya 1/20 scale F1 kits as much. I have every one of the Tamiya 1/20 scale (not all built yet) F1 series and the two kits that Modelers produced, which are the equal of Tamiya’s best efforts.

Recently Hasegawa and Fujimi have jumped in to fill the void that Tamiya has created by cutting back on their F1 offerings. And to that all I can say is “Bravo!â€

The kits that Hasegawa and Fujimi have put out there are every bit as good as Tamiya’s best.

In many ways Tamiya had always disappointed me with the obvious “holes†in their lineup of cars. They produced an excellent version of the McLaren M23 Texaco Ford, and even a version of the ( great color scheme, in my opinion) Yardley Ford McLaren with the beautifully curved flowing air intake scoop in 1/12 scale and never did a 1/20 scale version. They did the Lotus 78, Tyrrell P34 and Wolf in both scales but neglected the McLaren’s, Brabham BT44 and 312T Ferrari 1/20 scale. I have always been annoyed at Tamiya for the Ferrari omission. That is my favorite F1 car of all time followed closely by the World Champion Williams FW 14B….both cars Tamiya produced in 1/12 scale but never in 1/20 scale. Hasegawa made up, somewhat, for the Williams FW 14B by producing a very accurate version in 1.24 scale which built up to a beautiful car, especially with the addition of those evil Camel logos.

And while I am at it, complaining about the kit omissions, when are they (and you know who “they†are) going to grow up and drop that idiot sophomoric non-sense about banning tobacco advertising on race cars and therefore race car models??? What, when youngsters go into the 7-11 store to get a Slurpee they don’t see the cigarettes at the counter? They don’t see the Playboy magazine behind the register? Grow up. I pay $60.00 for a kit of an F1 car and now I have to pay someone else from $12.00 to $15.00 dollars to get the missing Tobacco logos so I can build a complete replica of a famous race car! You that is bull and completely unnecessary. I fully understand paying extra for a photo-etch set for a car. You can still build a very convincing model without the photo-etched parts, even though they lend immensely to the overall realism. But to omit the sponsor logos because they are a Tobacco company is just plain ridicules.

Sorry about that, I feel better having said that…..now, back to the cars, Tamiya built a metal, completely built 1/20 scale version of the Williams FW14B back in the day, it was a limited edition and sold for far too much money to justify its existence, in my opinion. I am sure it was a total flop (at least I hope it was) for Tamiya. Look, If I want to spend two to three hundred dollars on 1/20 scale F1 kits I can pickup any one of the many beautiful Model Factory Hiro engineless kits. But that is the point of Tamiya’s kits….they are priced so the majority of builders can afford them. When they feel it is more important to produce expensive limited edition pre built cars, Tamiya and I part company. I also could never understand why Tamiya did not produce a model of the Brabham BT 46B, the now famous, or is that infamous, Fan car. Tamiya offered the McLaren MP 4/4, MP4/5, MP4/7 and MP4/8….so why omit the MP4/6? They did it in 1/12 scale, so it is not like they didn’t have the design and blueprints. Why leave a hole in the lineup? I don’t understand some the reasoning here. I was also disappointed by Tamiya’s obvious “cheap†build of the 1977 Tyrrell P34 by going with the short cowl version and not doing the full cowl version that ran the majority of the 1977 season. Actually, I am not that upset by that, as it opened the door for me to vacuum form the full cowl version of this car which will be done in the next few weeks.

That leads me to the point of this posting, slash rant. Fortunately, Hasegawa and Fujimi have stepped up and have begun to fill the voids that the Tamiya has left behind. It seems to me that Tamiya is far more interested in Military, Naval Ships, aircraft and R/C kits to be worried about sports cars and 1/20 F1 kits. They created the whole segment of 1/12 and 1/20 scale F1 kits and now, with the exception of a precious few offerings they have abandoned it. I can’t remember the last new 1/24 kit, other then a few extreme high end cars, that had an engine in it. Call me a model snob, but I want my builds to come complete with engines.

Fujimi jumped in first with the Ferrari 126 C2 and 126 CK from the early 1980’s, in a few versions, both great additions to the 1/20 scale field and both Ferrari turbo cars, driven by the immortal Gilles Villeneuve. Then Fujimi offered up the Ferrari 248F1, piloted by Michael Schumacher or Felipe Massa from 2006. Then Hasegawa jumped in with great versions of the Ferrari 312T2 and then the 312T. Both kits offered with very nice and affordable photo-etched parts that include turned air funnels and mesh covers, and yes Curt, both of mine have all 12 pieces, and seat belt hardware and cloth material. I am so happy to have my grail kit in 1/20 scale along with the 312T2. So I will have the 312T, 312T2 and Tamiya 312T3 all sitting side by side.

Then Fujimi stepped up and produced a great new McLaren MP4/6 to fill the void, once again by Tamiya so that I can complete the run of Senna driven McLaren Marlboro (Ah, Oh, I said an evil word…..Marlboro) cars.

And now, as if that is not enough, Fujimi just produced and I just received the brand new Williams FW16….the infamous car that Ayrton Senna was driving on that fateful day in 1994 when he lost his life at Imola driving this very car.

Ayrton Senna was expected to dominate the F1 world driving this car. The best current driver, driving for a team that was at the height of its power in a car that was all but unbeatable, but it was never meant to be. On May 1st, 1994 Senna, on lap 6 failed to negotiate the sweeping turn named Tamburello at the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola Italy and crashed head first into a concrete retaining wall at 186 MPH. In an instant, he was dead. It was a tragic weekend in F1 to be sure.

On the previous day, Roland Ratzenberger, an Austrian rookie driving for the much lesser known Simtek team flew off the track at nearly 200 MPH during qualifying and lost his life. His being the first death in F1 in 12 years and setting up an ominous mood for Sunday’s race. Senna called his girlfriend the night before the race telling her he had a bad feeling about this race and he even told her that he did not want to drive the next day….he was so upset by the previous days events. The interesting thing to me about this race, aside from the deaths, was that Senna, by his death, opened up the door for Michael Schumacher to rise to the pinnacle of the elite Formula and it deprived us of what I would expect to have been many memorable confrontations between Senna and Michael. We got to see some epic duals between Michael and Villeneuve in the Williams, but I think Schumacher/Senna would have been a clash of the titans, much like Senna/Prost from the years before.

I thought I would post pictures of the Williams and a brief review of the kit. There is a beautiful rendering of the car, nose first on the box top, all done in Williams blue of the day. There is the outline of the parts trees which has become the norm for Fujimi and F1 kits. As you open the box you realize that if you did not know it, you would swear you were looking at a Tamiya F1 release. The plastic bags that each tree is packaged in, has the same little staple holding it closed, just like Tamiya does. Just look at the exquisite detail molded into the side of the rear wing…it is perfect!

If I have one criticism of the kit, I wish the main body tub was one piece, but that is easy to correct and not uncommon for even Tamiya on the F1 kits.

Notice how very Tamiya looking the suspension pieces are.

The parts are extremely crisply molded and the trees are laid out exactly like Tamiya would have done it.

Obviously there is not a speck of flash to be found anywhere. Everything and every part is as clean and sterile as if it were in an Operating Room.

The directions are very clear and simple to follow.

If you have build one Tamiya F1 kit, you know the sequence to these steps is almost always identical to each other. The same kind of painting codes are used as in other kits, so no surprises there. The tires use the sometimes difficult, but standard, reverse dry transfer method for the manufacturer markings. And, the actual tires look great. Molded in hard rubber they are nice and smooth with almost no seam down the middle….very nicely done and I am sure they will look great completed with the wheels and markings.

The decal sheet is a bit small but complete and is missing the obvious, but none the less annoying, Tobacco sponsorship decals. I know someone, most likely a few, will produce these markings so I will have to lay out more money for them. I am also sure someone, also most likely many again, will do some photo-etched pieces for this kit…I will also have to get them.

As you may be able to see in the pictures, they give you material for the seatbelts in red with the “cut lines†drawn on the other side. There is a small photo-etch fret for the seatbelt along with die-cut seatbelt manufacturer’s logos for Sabelt. I will include the driver figure of Senna in mine so I will see how these parts work with a driver figure. Back in the day, I grabbed a bunch of Tamiya Driver and Technician kits for $3.00 each on closeout, so I have enough to do the Senna figure for all of the McLaren’s and Villeneuve for the Ferrari kits.

Indirectly, they include what looks like a paint mask for the stripe. It is all in Japanese, sorry, my Japanese is rather rusty, since it is nonexistent! The mask is not die-cut so I am not sure now it is intended to be used, but I will attempt to find out. I find it strange since the decal sheet is complete, at least as far as the striping is concerned.

All and all, this is a beautifully designed kit, of an infamous car. I am glad to have it and want to build it up to how it looked on the grid just before 2:00pm on May 1, 1994 with a nervous but determined Ayrton Senna sitting on pole for the 3rd round of the 1994 Formula One season.