Part 1: First Look

MSRP: $19.50 Web Site: www.tamiyausa.com The latest newly tooled 1/48 scale kit from Tamiya is the Type 95 Kurogane. The vehicle is a 3 seat, 4 wheel drive vehicle that performed similar duties to the US Jeep and the German Kubelwagen. The vehicle was powered by an air cooled V2 engine that produced 33hp. The kit is molded in typical Tamiya beige styrene and there is a fret of clear styrene for windows, lights, and the convertible roof. There are 39 beige styrene parts. 8 of these styrene parts make up the two crew figures. There are 8 clear parts. It is neat to see things that you haven't seen before. On a small square of backing paper, there are 4 metal transfers that look like stainless steel photo etched metal parts. 2 are used in this kit (1 for the rear view mirror and 1 for the hood emblem attached to the grill). The two other parts are not used in the kit (1 is a naval emblem of some type and 1 is some sort of identification plate). The extra parts may indicate that a different version of this kit is on the way. The black and white directions are very informative as are most Tamiya directions sheets. A brief vehicle history is included. There are two decals included in the kit for the one paint scheme called out in the directions. One decal is used for the dash board, and the other is a star that is placed on the "metal transfer" hood ornament. Unlike the Kubelwagen kits in this scale, the windshield glass is molded separately from the bulk of the windshield frame. This allows the modeler to be a little more liberal with the paint being placed on the frame. As mentioned above, the entire convertible roof is molded in clear styrene. This will test the modeler's skills with masking, and on my sample, a lot of Tamiya tape will be used. Fortunately, if I mess up the windows on the convertible roof, parts are included to model the vehicle with an open top. Three parts have ejector pin marks that will be visible if the convertible roof is down. Parts A11 (the two front seats) and A16 (rear seat) have ejector pin marks on their back side. The depressions are barely noticeable, and it won't take much work to fill them. The two figures have minor mold seams to clean up, but they appear to have nice detail. I measured the tires with a ruler and they scale out to be approximately 31" tall. They look to be the right size per the box art. I'm going to look this vehicle up online to verify these dimensions since I do not have any reference material on this vehicle. I plan on building this kit out of box using the directions for paint and decal placement. I plan on using the convertible roof in the up position unless I have a problem with the window masks. This looks to be another fun and interesting kit in this fairly new line of kits from Tamiya. This is my sixth kit build from this line of Tamiya kits, and I've enjoyed building each one of them. I'd like to thank Tamiya and IPMSUSA for this neat little review kit. Stay tuned for the final build in a few weeks.

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