On this fourth article, I want to share with you another manufacturer I love to collect : Hobby Japan.
Hobby Japan is a news magazine publisher and manufacturer but at the same time a retailer that owns the Post Hobby shops chain. It is also known to own the “Mark43” brand for the 1/43 model car range.
They started a new line for 1/64 premium cars called Hobby Japan. I don’t know much about it, except that their line up really excites me. They tooled the Honda Integra Type R, and the Honda Civic FD2.
I believe their first models were a Honda Prelude BA5 of 1989 , and a Toyota Soarer of 1988.
I have the Prelude as you can see above. A really nice minicar, I love the wheels and the spoiler. It isn’t very funny but I think it is manly due to the dark grey color.
One important thing to note with this brand is the variety of colors. You really have a choice, among 4 to 6 colors at the same time, with often various combinations of colors and stock wheels or more “after market” wheels. Crazy.
That being said, the distribution outside of Japan seems not so easy. Like Tomica Limited Vintage, I have the feeling that Japanese manufacturers are not very well distributed outside of the country.
While their range of cars is mainly oriented on 90’s Honda classic cars (I couldn’t be more happy), they recently tooled the fantastic new GR Toyota Supra.
Photo credit of the real Supra from http://www.autoplus.fr
GR stands for Gazoo Racing, the sporty department of Toyota.
This little sport car has the hard task of being the Supra legacy (the last known Supra was the RZ Supra aka the well know Supra from the 90’s). It is though a common base with the new BMW Z4.
I am fond of this new sport car, and its chunky look. I also love the double boss on the roof.
Anyway, Hobby Japan execution is very good. It comes with a black plastic baseplate with cool inscription “SUPRA IS BACK”. The tone has been set.
I have chosen the red one, being for me the most iconic color with the grey. But I straight wanted another one and I ordered a yellow one I received just a few days ago. They are two birds of a feather.
The price tag is about €22 / $25. It is not cheap, but you have a nice execution, and nice details.
My criticism is that they don’t always add brake disks and calipers on the wheels. Supra have them, but the Prelude and the Yellow Honda Integra seen on the first picture don’t. I personally thing this is a shame for a car of such a price range. And as our friend beardedmugmedia on this blog said, wheels can make or break a model.
Overall, the GR Supra by Hobby Japan is really good. The stance i’m such looking for is here, and good, with photo etched details, exhausts as separated pieces, mirrors, paint quality.
For once, this model gets nice brake disks and calipers.
The other reason I wanted a red version is also to accomplish this trio, being for me the 3 generations of Toyota Supra ever produced.
The first Supra (A70, 1986-1992) is from Tomica Limited Vintage and the second gen (A80 1993-2002) in renaissance red is from Mini GT.
A nice trio i’m very happy with.
You can have a look at my other articles on Lamleygroup here and my Instagram page here. Thank you for reading this article.
While the car looks great and probably rides and handles fantastically, I think it’s a shame that the GR Supra is mostly a BMW Z4 under its clothes. It may be quick and flashy, but true to BMW reliability, it has already seen a recall.
It seems Toyota doesn’t have any interest in producing its own sports cars anymore, as we saw with the Scion FRS/Toyota 86, which was just a Subaru BRZ in disguise. If people wanted an endless money pit sports car, they could buy a real Z4. I suspect buyers of this car were looking for a true Japanese sports car – relatively cheap, easy to work on, and reliable while still fun to drive.
As for the die-cast version shown here, it looks quite good. As mentioned, we don’t see this brand in the Americas, but it would be nice if we did. I’m not sure how quickly they would fly off the shelves given the price point, but I’m sure they would have their loyal buyers.
EZ: take it as a MiJo Exclusive Import. Come on, would make sense.