I do like Japanese VIP saloons of a certain era very much, and yet I let this one languish in the stash for some 7.5 years before it got it's time in the sun - it was one of the 5 oldest unbuilt kits in my collection. Not too modern, not too boxy, it's the perfect shape and the sort of car I'd love to have in real life.
It fits together with few problems. Proportions are good on the outside, chrome parts are useful. There are two entire sets of all the transparent parts - tinted and clear. The wheels are nicely moulded and plated and the tyres are good.
The chassis was warped and so was the wraparound add-on rear bumper. The glass parts are clearly too thick and the side windows in particular are just not crystally transparent and are fuzzy to look through. The wraparound bumpers are not a great fit at either end of the car, take some work to install and need filler. The front foglights have no proper backs as this is a lash-up of a body kit onto a standard Y33 Cima. It'd have been better if the bumpers were seperate and interchangeable rather than glue-over-the-top-of-the-existing-ones. The seats are normal sized but once the car is assembled - there's either a lot of headroom in the Cima or the seats are just too low. But they match the dashboard's height and legroom. Something odd going on there in the proportions. Some of the interior details are a bit "scratchy" - for example the recess line on the dashboard that indicates an airbag - it looks like someone scratched it into there with a not especially sharp needle. Same goes for a lot of the dashboard. Also it almost goes without saying in an Aoshima VIP car kit - it's curbside therefore with no engine.
It's OK but that's all it is. I can think of at least 10 significant ways this kit could have been better. I can't find a copyright date on the box or instructions to see how old this kit is but it's far from Aoshima's current quality. The results you can get from this kit are in excess of the quality of the kit itself.
Completed during July 2020 and painted with TS-14 Tamiya Gloss Black / TS-38 Gun Metal two-tone. Aside from some seatbelt retainers and changing the wheels to Aoshima Enkei GTC01RR 19 inches as I preferred these, it's otherwise built Out-Of-the-Box. I figured when I glued the warped rear bumper to the unwarped body shell, the body would pull the bumper into true. Which it did, about 95%. The other 5% was the bumper pulling the body out of true. However, the chassis was also warped and as luck would have it - in the opposite direction to the body. When joined, they make something almost straight, however this car is still a tripod - just, one front wheel being about 1mm off the ground when standing naturally. Annoying. I think this will also be the last car I make pure black. It does polish up well and photographs great, but the reality is that highly polished pure black paint looks remarkably like highly polished black plastic direct out of the mould. I think I'll stick with clearcoated Tamiya Metallic Black for any future black cars. Nonetheless a black car does lend itself to some more creative photography, so this build got that treatment.
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