paddy
Well-known member
Tamiya's 1/12 1966 GP bike.
Dont be fooled by the 1/12 bit !! it was tiny in real life
Tamiya motorcycle kits are a bit special, anyone who has built one produced in the last 10 years will know they are pretty well as good as a kit can be. They have had the precision and detail Tamiya are starting to produce on their 1/32 aircraft ( Spit, P51)for a few years now. I have built a few and they always leave me thinking, the kit was so good I didn’t really do it justice. There is also a secret under world of Tamiya bike builders, people who produce perfection that mere mortals can’t hope to match.
I have always had a passion for classic bikes, modern bikes leave me a little cold, so when I saw this kit was being released it caught my eye straight away.
Honda was formed in 1954, one of its first aims was to compete in the “Isle of Man TT race” a classic street circuit race round the Isle of Man in the Irish sea between England and Ireland. At the time the race was THE race to win, it had been going since 1904 and involved 3-4 laps of a 45mile coarse. Through streets and country side and even over the islands mountain with all the problems that could bring…like fog and rain. Honda set its self a target to enter the 1959 race and be competative, this meant they needed to produce a world class engine from scratch and they set themselves a target of 100bhp per 1000cc or equivalent for their 125cc racer. By the time they reached this target the competition was already aiming for 150bhp /1000cc but never the less then entered the race and came 6th. This was at a time when most peoples only experience of the Japanese’s was war time memories. Suddenly the racing world was confronted with these ultra-efficient, ultra- polite and 100% dedicated little people that might as well have come from outer space in 1959. These were not mechanics, they were world class engineers. The fact that the British saw them as a bit of a joke and didn’t take them seriously was the start of the downfall of the great British motorcycle manufacturing industry. As a direct result of this race the writing was on the wall for great marques like Norton, Triumph ,AJS , and Vincent.
Honda learnt from their 6th place and in 1961 they returned taking the top 5 places in the 125cc and 250cc races …………..
Honda’s main rivals now were fellow Japanese factories of Yamaha and Suzuki and the competition was great over the next 3-4 years as all manufacturers fought it out on the world GP series. Honda had a mediocre few years until in 1965 they took on world champion rider, the Brit, Mike Hailwood. With his immense experience Honda rolled out a 250cc 6 cylinder 4 stroke machine with an engine that had proved troublesome and difficult to race. Mike got to work learning how to race a 6 cylinder engine with 6 x 41cc pistons revving to 17500 rpm !! and producing nearly 60bhp from just 250cc, an output of 240bhp/1000cc no less, more than double their target of 4 years earlier.!!
The rest is History , Mike became known as “Mike the Bike” and in 1965 the little 250cc Honda won every race and class it entered and gave Honda its first ever manufacturer/rider championship.
On the face of it this little kit seems to be every bit as good as the other Tamiya kits but this kit comes with a twist. Rather than leave the aftermarket companies to do detail up kits Tamiya have pre-empt them and done them themselves. As well as the basic kit that has all you need to build a superb model they have added a wheel kit. Polished alloy rims with stainless steel spokes you need to build yourself. Front fork and clutch kit made of beautiful turned alloy parts. A drive chain kit made up of 100 separate working metal links that need to be assembled, each link made up of 6 parts and less than 1mm (0.040”) in size. To that they have added a rivet set for seat upholstery.
I am not a defeatist but I do tend to have ideas above my station with builds. I am inspired by people like chuk to take on better and better kits but the reality is 75% of what chuk produces was never in the box in the first place, he starts where the kit designer left off whereas this kit is really the sort of kit chuk would produce if he was a manufacturer I suspect. .The saving grace for me is if I get the aftermarket terribly wrong I have the original parts to fall back on …there you go see, I’m already looking at a back up plan…lol
Motorcycle kits are really several little sub kits that come together at the end to make a finished model. To that end you have to build the engine, the wheels, in this case the chain, the frame and forks and the bodywork separately. I am going to start with this chain as I need to get it out the way or it will nag at me over Xmas and New Year.
Dont be fooled by the 1/12 bit !! it was tiny in real life
Tamiya motorcycle kits are a bit special, anyone who has built one produced in the last 10 years will know they are pretty well as good as a kit can be. They have had the precision and detail Tamiya are starting to produce on their 1/32 aircraft ( Spit, P51)for a few years now. I have built a few and they always leave me thinking, the kit was so good I didn’t really do it justice. There is also a secret under world of Tamiya bike builders, people who produce perfection that mere mortals can’t hope to match.
I have always had a passion for classic bikes, modern bikes leave me a little cold, so when I saw this kit was being released it caught my eye straight away.
Honda was formed in 1954, one of its first aims was to compete in the “Isle of Man TT race” a classic street circuit race round the Isle of Man in the Irish sea between England and Ireland. At the time the race was THE race to win, it had been going since 1904 and involved 3-4 laps of a 45mile coarse. Through streets and country side and even over the islands mountain with all the problems that could bring…like fog and rain. Honda set its self a target to enter the 1959 race and be competative, this meant they needed to produce a world class engine from scratch and they set themselves a target of 100bhp per 1000cc or equivalent for their 125cc racer. By the time they reached this target the competition was already aiming for 150bhp /1000cc but never the less then entered the race and came 6th. This was at a time when most peoples only experience of the Japanese’s was war time memories. Suddenly the racing world was confronted with these ultra-efficient, ultra- polite and 100% dedicated little people that might as well have come from outer space in 1959. These were not mechanics, they were world class engineers. The fact that the British saw them as a bit of a joke and didn’t take them seriously was the start of the downfall of the great British motorcycle manufacturing industry. As a direct result of this race the writing was on the wall for great marques like Norton, Triumph ,AJS , and Vincent.
Honda learnt from their 6th place and in 1961 they returned taking the top 5 places in the 125cc and 250cc races …………..
Honda’s main rivals now were fellow Japanese factories of Yamaha and Suzuki and the competition was great over the next 3-4 years as all manufacturers fought it out on the world GP series. Honda had a mediocre few years until in 1965 they took on world champion rider, the Brit, Mike Hailwood. With his immense experience Honda rolled out a 250cc 6 cylinder 4 stroke machine with an engine that had proved troublesome and difficult to race. Mike got to work learning how to race a 6 cylinder engine with 6 x 41cc pistons revving to 17500 rpm !! and producing nearly 60bhp from just 250cc, an output of 240bhp/1000cc no less, more than double their target of 4 years earlier.!!
The rest is History , Mike became known as “Mike the Bike” and in 1965 the little 250cc Honda won every race and class it entered and gave Honda its first ever manufacturer/rider championship.
On the face of it this little kit seems to be every bit as good as the other Tamiya kits but this kit comes with a twist. Rather than leave the aftermarket companies to do detail up kits Tamiya have pre-empt them and done them themselves. As well as the basic kit that has all you need to build a superb model they have added a wheel kit. Polished alloy rims with stainless steel spokes you need to build yourself. Front fork and clutch kit made of beautiful turned alloy parts. A drive chain kit made up of 100 separate working metal links that need to be assembled, each link made up of 6 parts and less than 1mm (0.040”) in size. To that they have added a rivet set for seat upholstery.
I am not a defeatist but I do tend to have ideas above my station with builds. I am inspired by people like chuk to take on better and better kits but the reality is 75% of what chuk produces was never in the box in the first place, he starts where the kit designer left off whereas this kit is really the sort of kit chuk would produce if he was a manufacturer I suspect. .The saving grace for me is if I get the aftermarket terribly wrong I have the original parts to fall back on …there you go see, I’m already looking at a back up plan…lol
Motorcycle kits are really several little sub kits that come together at the end to make a finished model. To that end you have to build the engine, the wheels, in this case the chain, the frame and forks and the bodywork separately. I am going to start with this chain as I need to get it out the way or it will nag at me over Xmas and New Year.
