Tamiya Corporation - Entrance of Plastic Models

Entrance of Plastic Models

The company was founded in 1946 as Tamiya Shoji & Co. (Tamiya Company) by Yoshio Tamiya (15 May 1905 - 2 November 1988) in Oshika, Shizuoka City. It was a sawmill and lumber supply company. With the high availability of wood, the Mokuzaigyou Company's wood products division (founded in 1947) was also producing wooden models of ships and airplanes, which later became company's foundation. In 1953, they decided to stop the sale of architectural lumber and focused solely on model making.

In the mid 1950s, foreign made plastic models were beginning to be imported and wooden model sales were decreasing, so in 1959 they decided to manufacture plastic models. Their first model was the Yamato. However, Tamiya's predecessors had sold Yamato models at 350 yen. By competing, Tamiya was at risk to get into the red by setting their price the same. However, they could not recover the cost of producing metal molds, so once again, they changed their products to wooden models, but at that time the model trade's tide was turning toward plastic models.

Using metal molds no longer needed for plastic toys, they released a racecar mini-kit, which was to finance the production of their next plastic model. To their good fortune, it became a hit. They decided that the second plastic model was to be the Panther tank, which had a linear form which would make the molds simple to produce. They commissioned Shigeru Komatsuzaki to do the box art. The Panther was motorized, moved well, and had a clear instruction manual which made it easy to assemble. Because of this, it gained a good reputation. It was made in a 1/35 scale because it was decided that it would use a single TYPE 2 battery but would hold 2 of them.

Read more about this topic:  Tamiya Corporation

Famous quotes containing the words entrance of, entrance, plastic and/or models:

    Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. We parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Reporters for tabloid newspapers beat a path to the park entrance each summer when the national convention of nudists is held, but the cult’s requirement that visitors disrobe is an obstacle to complete coverage of nudist news. Local residents interested in the nudist movement but as yet unwilling to affiliate make observations from rowboats in Great Egg Harbor River.
    —For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    On leaf of palm, on sedge-wrought roll;
    On plastic clay and leathern scroll,
    Man wrote his thoughts; the ages passed,
    And lo! the Press was found at last!
    John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)

    The greatest and truest models for all orators ... is Demosthenes. One who has not studied deeply and constantly all the great speeches of the great Athenian, is not prepared to speak in public. Only as the constant companion of Demosthenes, Burke, Fox, Canning and Webster, can we hope to become orators.
    Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)