Kit: Tamiya Toyota Celica GT-Four 1/24 Scale
You know what you never see anymore? These cars. What happened to this generation of Celica?
I think I did this one in 1998 or so. Many of the parts were molded in the correct color (black, silver, etc) and looked so nice out of the package that painting was just unneccessary. The body was molded in the color I wanted anyway, and it looked nicer out of the package than any of my paint jobs to that day, so I left it unpainted.
The wheels turn easily and as a nice pseudo rally feature, if you push the car along a surface and add a little fishtail, the wheels shift to automatically correct. Maybe I’ve never noticed this in my few turnable steering models, but it’s cool.
The hood irks me. You can tell this Tamiya model was made with all kinds of stringent tolerances, but the hood is so precise to the point where it never quite shuts. It’s got a nice feature where you can display with the hood open and it stays up, but mine only jams shut once every 30 tries or so, and only if you don’t touch anything else. Closing it for the photos was a pain. Maybe it’s something I did wrong.
The 90s called. It still loves how this interior looks.
Can you just hear the rumbly exhaust? I bet too many of these were modified and thusly crashed or something.
I remember Sega Rally Championship featured this car. I made a similar model but from a different year Celica.
I swear I didn’t have to paint much of this model. So thankful for that at the time but not much of a challenge.
Nicely detailed engine compartment. I still have this car on display in 2022.