Group Build Description: A build in memory of Mr Tamiya. If you can recall your first Tamiya build and a unbuilt kit is obtainable please do that. For everyone else that cannot recall, maybe never built one before or that kit is not available build any Tamiya kit you can get your hands on. For this campaign I want to limit the choice to strictly Tamiya original boxings and not any kits they reboxed or someone reboxed/copies their plastic.
Completion Award: TBD but probably a Tamiya logo in the mix.
I’m building mine strictly out of box, warts and all. After all this is a Mr. TAMIYA tribute campaign, not an aftermarket campaign. I think I will be building the highly inaccurate M3 Lee, since that is the first Tamiya kit I can remember building.
Great idea. My first was the 1/35 Pershing tank, but I don’t have one. I do have their M4A3 Sherman kit….loved that tank and figure set when I was a kid.
I’m in, only recently got it and checking the date on the hull is states 1970, so the mould is almost as old as me. JGSDF Type 61, never built one and as for aftermarket the only thing I’ve found for it are tracks but only sold in Japan and not showing as in stock and/or future release. So this will be an out of the box build.
I agree with mostly OOB, and NO aftermarket, but would suggest some use of styrene sheet and shapes should be permissible. If I recall correctly, my first Tamiya, the SAS Jeep, required some framing around the jerry cans carried over the rear wheel arches.
Oh, my gosh… My first Tamiya kits were in their 1/48 scale motorized kit range, the ones with (real) rubber band tracks. I believe that all of those are long, long, long out of production.
However, I do offer a long, deep and respectful bow to the memory of Mr. Tamiya-san.
Mr. Tamiya himself dug conversons, so I think that making your own from styrene and two part putty would be fine. Plastering Verlinden crap all over a build, not so much.
Not sure what I’ll build, but one of my first Tamiya kits was an 8-Rad that I cut and converted into the earlier 6-Rad armoured car thanks to a LOT of effort and some Plastruct shapes! I had all the motorised tanks back in the 70s such as the KT, M41, and others - the KT was even one of those “steerable” ones with a tethered control box with two joysticks…
I am not a stickler for rules. If someone wants to honor him with a massive conversion with aftermarket parts and styrene I say go for it. If someone wants to honor him as more of a purist, then I also say go for it. The goal is the same.
My first was the motorized 1/35th SU 100. It was rereleased at some point but… So I am thinking an early kit.
Enter the new contestant I found in the stash. It was given to me by a friend. Now is a good time to build it.
My Tamiya M60A2 that I built sometime in the early 1980’s was motorized. Not RC though. Just an on and off switch and I ran it in the backyard dirt until the batteries died.
First I built was the Leopard 1A4 some time in the mid-90’s. I think also the first 1/35 after building a load of Airfix and Matchbox small scale armour.
I remember buying it too straight after my birthday. I’d had money off a lot of relatives and I remember wanting to get something like a Tiger or Panther, but when I got to the model shop in my hometown (sadly long gone), they had none. So, I bought that instead. Remember it being a really good kit.
The one(s) I built way back in the day are either not in my stash or I (re)built them during the course of time.
So I will jump in with an oldie I have been meaning to do for a very long time:
The Chieftain Mk.5 in BOAR colours.
