Tamiya #35146, Late Tiger 1, from 1989
I’ve built the kit twice previously and this makes the third one.
3 Price ~$51 Sprue Brothers (paid ~$20, vendor wanted it gone)
5 Instructions while the location of Zimmerit has some questionable accuracy on the front glacis, overall the instructions are clear and concise.
5 Molding Quality crisp but dated, no sink marks, no short shots, no flash, zero complaints from me
5 Plastic Quality higher quality plastic than the competition, slightly hard but cleans up well
3 Parts Clean Up lots of punch marks to fix, exterior faces of some road wheels, internal face of muffler guards, side of jack, 4 punch markers per track link, 100 links per track plus spares so ~800+ punch marks for inside face of the individual link tracks. Tow cables & track cable unfortunately there’s a lot of mold seams to remove.
3 Ease of Build would be 5 but the model needs a zimmerit coating that complicates construction, lot of RAW openings to fix, four where engine deck grates are located, drivers visor and air intake. If not boarded up with sheet styrene the empty internals can be see from various angles. Likewise massive punch marks to fix (800+) on kit tracks or an aftermarket solution which complicates the build. Likewise finding appropriate engine deck screens separately.
2 Accuracy - looks fairly accurate at first but don’t look too hard at the turret. Armorama Archive - Tamiya Tiger Turret , shape? main gun placement? Tiger Model Design makes replacement turrets to address this issue.
5 Fit - meticulously cleaning parts of attachment points and burrs works wonders. Test fitting is also helpful.
0 Doesn’t Require Aftermarket - the kit really deserve a negative score because so much benefits from being replaced with aftermarket or enhanced by aftermarket. This was true in 1989 when the kit was a new release. It’s very easy to drop $100 in upgrades and that just covers the basics!
Tracks, main gun, turret, MG’s, engine deck screens, tool clasps, track cable, tow cables, periscopes for the cupola…the list keeps going…
0 Details built Out of the Box - built out of the box the lack of fidelity to the appearance of a Late Tiger 1 is striking. If fidelity to identity matters to the modeler this kit shouldn’t be built OOTB. This was true in 1989 and with today’s rising standards of kit excellence hasn’t changed.
31 points out of 50
31/50 => 62%
Not recommended 
This once stellar must buy kit has been surpassed by many other kits that cost roughly the same or less. Likewise cost will spiral quickly acquiring aftermarket upgrades to improve this kit.
If one has the kit in the the stash, it’s a nice nostalgia build and can use up a lot of old dated aftermarket parts on the storage shelf.
Despite my objective opinion this kit is light years past it’s prime, it’s still a fun build. The kit builds very nicely. There another Tamiya Late Tiger kit in the stash plus two very similar mid models. In time all will probably see the work bench.
