Just read on Armorama that Mr. Tamiya announced during the Shizuoka show that he will be retiring in June 2008.
Might that mean the end of their 1/48 scale line, which is supposedly his "baby"... or maybe the end of the metal chassis syndrome, which was also said to be his idea?
I have heard that his Son-in-Law will take over....and will continue on as Mr. T wishes.....until his death...when, I'm sure, all bets are off.....
I think that there will be a good look at profitibilty of all segments of their company.....money is probably tight for them, as well as, the rest of the Industry....and that the home market will be catered to the most.
I also heard that the most models of any Tamiya item at the club was displays......was.....the Kurogane!!! Who woulda thunk it??
It had to happen sometime - Shunsaku is not a young man. We will have to see what the future of 1/48 holds. If the son-in-law does follow through with new 1/48 kits, at least for a while, we can always hope the major chassis types are produced. For the Germans, we could still use the PzKpfw II and PzKpfw 38t (as in the Wespe SP 105mmH and early Marder III kits) which would then allow us to build a huge variety of SP guns and other vehicles. Yeah, we could use a new sdKfz 7 8-ton tractor, but the Bandai kit is salvageable with new wheels and tracks though the aftermarket probably won't supply us with those. (Of course, there's no telling what Bob at ID will do, with no competition.) In the US field, we could use a good Dodge T214 3/4 light truck kit, and Jan at Hauler could supply us with the rest of the family as he is with the Steyr 1500A. If we could get a US halftrack and the M3/M5 light tanks from someone, that would fill most of the practical needs of the US contingent for combat vehicles. Of course, for the diehards, there is plenty of resin that does fill these gaps, but it is more expensive than the plastic stuff, kit for kit. What we do with this situation is up to us as well as Tamiya. It is always possible that if Tamiya drops out, someone else might drop in with the decreased competition. Italeri has a bunch of really lovely kits from the 1970s and early 80s that give away nothing in terms of detail or finesse in molding. Realistically, there is already so much available that if you were to build all the possible OOB variations - just the choices in the kits, different versions and color/markings schemes - you'd have a near-lifetime of 1/48 modeling ahead of you.
Apparently the Japanese market has responded to 1/48th scale armor and is probably our "security blanket" against instant oblivion, should Tamiya drop out of 1/48th scale armor market.
Even the Japanese market is not tireless, however, and I think we have all noticed the drastic slowdown of 2007 compared to the armor deluge of 2006. As far as I can remember, the only genuinely new tank hull of 2007 from Tamiya was the Crusader, which is quite a shock compared to the 15 odd tanks in 30 odd variations we got in 2006! You can add Hobby Boss's KV series for a grand total of TWO new basic hull types in about 18 months! Hobby Boss, the only real contender, has quit since, which doesn't bode well as to how succesful our scale is, unfortunately. Despite the quality of the Russian subjects, the HB Sherman debacle has had serious consequences, apparently...
Tamiya has apparently caught on to the aircraft diorama potential of softskins and "semi softskins", and the consequently greater market these represent. Nothing we couldn't have told them forty years ago, mind you, but at least the lean of recent Tamiya releases has been in that direction, and quite justifiably so. Though one could argue a fuel truck would have been even smarter, as Hasegawa chose to do.
On the good side, and despite the GMC's hiccup, the slowdown seems to have led to a general increase in the accuracy of Tamiya releases, or at least fewer shoddy solid-moulded handle short cuts like the Panther and King Tiger.(OK there was the M8, oh well...)
Given the slow start of our scale's popularity, we would be in a deep hole if Tamiya was to quit, and I don't think anyone would rush in to fill an apparently non-existent void... At my local IPMS club the lack of interest in 1/48th armor is rather eye-poking.
If we are destined to oblivion, here is my "urgent" wish list;
Not all resin kits are expensive. The ones from Europe often are because of the lousy dollar and postage, but there are resin kits and conversions made here in the US and Canada that are much more reasonable in price. Take a look at Ken Swenson's kits - some of them are about $30-35, and very well done. Ken has done the M3 mediums, Lee and Grant, as well as the M3/M5/M8 light tank family, and some other stuff more off the mainstream track: Japanese tankettes and the A13 cruiser. None of thesde are that much more than MSRP for the newer Tamiya kits or the ICM '222 a/car. So, there will always be more choices than it might first appear.
The US Halftracks series, JSU-152/JS-II chasis, and 232 8-wheel series plastic kits would be fantastic. For resin: KV-1S, Su-85, and su-152(in progress by Oliver). I think I could be a very happy builder for a long time then (with sufficient diorama accessories that is).
Greg
For me the most useful resin kits have all been those that are a conversion based on a mainstream chassis. The mainstream chassis seems to force the maker to pay attention to the basic symmetry of parts, which seems to be otherwise quite a problem, while reducing the issues of warping and shrinking by half if not more.
Resin tracks are not easy to wrap around sprockets, especially fragile resin sprockets, and maintaining alignement, symmetry, straightness, square angles while keeping at bay toe in or toe out from multiple view points with unforgiving cyano glue PLUS the correct multiple wheels positions and fender clearance has proven for me to be little more than witchcraft, even on subjects where the correct track sag was not an issue.
I for one would never attempt a full tracked vehicle in resin again after my experience with the Gasoline Stuart...
Glass cabin softskin vehicles present another problem for resin makers who almost always ask you to cut and flush-fit from the inside 3 do-it-yourself pieces of acetate, without even providing a sharp undercut on the inside to help you get a flush fit on the outside. Even if you do succeed to make that under cut in the confined space, if there is any clearness left over when the cyano fumes clear out, you will be left with a crude-looking inside edge unless your acetate cutting miraculously matches perfectly your desperate grinding deep inside a 1/2 inch wide space.
Surprisingly, the only plausible effort in that area by a resin maker that I have seen was called I think the Hanomag tractor by Gasoline or Tarmac, which provided a vacu-formed transparent cube that fitted perfectly inside the cabin.
It's no wonder most built-up resin cabins I have seen on the box top of the actual kit usually show you heavily "dusted" windows...
So what is left, at least for the average modeler in my opinion, are armored cars and open-top vehicles... Hardly a Quater-scale promised land...
Luckily for us, even if the rug does gets pulled from under us, there are now plenty of good chassis with excellent tracks that won't be hard to get for a long time to come...
The Japanese market loves the 1/48 releases. Don't forget they have limited space in their homes. North America prefers HO scale trains, Japan prefers N scale, which is smaller.