I’m back with another JDM product and another Hobby Japan minicar. Hobby Japan is slowly ranking among the best model makers in 1:64. The manufacturer is pushing to offer more and more castings, and the number of variants is nuts at each release. The bad thing about Hobby Japan is the distribution (it’s often the case with Japan products), which is at this day confined to Japan market. But I can’t be OK with that. I want to be able to buy the products, we want Hobby Japan to be distributed in the US and Europe !
Why that ? because the cars are too cool ! Let’s have a look at the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IV I’ve bought in Hong Kong on eBay. I have 3 more models on the way from Tiny.hk but for know, let’s talk about this one. I’ve bought only one cause the brand is not cheap, and shipping neither. Plus, this version is, to me, the best looking one.
I love Ralliart decorations, plus white rims. We have a perfect combo. The Lancer Evo IV is not a very common car in 1:64. Only Tomica Limited Vintage tooled one recently. Tarmac Works did the Evo V, Inno64 the Evo III, and I think CM’s did one Evo IV once.
The car itself is pretty good, the stance is awesome. The overall feeling of Hobby Japan minicars is that it’s very neat. It reminds me a lot Kyosho models. The quality of the paint is clearly not what you can expect from Tomica Limited Vintage, but some details are most welcome. In fact I would rank Hobby Japan between Kyosho and Tomica Limited Vintage.
The most purists will note that the interior is not a sport cars one but the street car one. I believe that Hobby Japan did not tooled a special rally interior just for one variant of the car. That’s not a big deal for me.
And you, what do you think of Hobby Japan ? Do you have some in your collections ? Please tell me in the comments if you like it or not, and if you would like to see more of this brand covered here. Thank you! Cheers.
@willdiecast