Reviews : Tamiya Porsche Carrera GT Sportscar Covertible

In my lifetime I have built hundreds of Tamiya kits. Most of the kits I have built have been tossed to the scrap heap of life. But I do remember many of the kits very fondly Every once in a while, one of these old kits resurfaces such as the Kubelwagen, Schwimwagen, or their Motorcycle kits, and I buy them yet again. The big difference between then and now, I’m not a little kid with a tube of glue and a 15-cent jar of paint. Another big difference is I won’t be moving again, so these newer builds of mine have a good chance of surviving. But it is with that nostalgic heart that I build my models. Even though this subject matter is not old by my standards, it does remind me of the quality the kits I used to build. The modern Tamiya car kits are works of art, and the Porsche Carrera GT is no exception. This kit comes on seven sprues plus the body, poly caps, a metal axle, and rubber tires. The body and two sprues are molded in a metallic gray. There are two black sprues, one chrome one clear and one clear red. There are 99 parts, four tires, one metal axle, some metal transfers, and ten poly caps. The instructions are clear and precise. Practice test fitting and you won’t have any problems. Many of the assemblies are broken down to make painting easier. The doors are built with three parts, each part is painted a different color which makes it easier to paint. Nice engineering on Tamiya’s part. The first two steps are building the engine and attaching it to Rear lower deck. If care is taken and some extra work done to detail and paint the engine with some plumbing it will be a standout in any model contest. If you build it straight out of the box, it will still be very impressive. Quite a bit of the engine actually shows when the model is complete, and Tamiya gives you a lot to work with. In step three, you add the exhaust manifolds. Steps four and five are the building of the front brakes and attaching them to the front suspension. No problems here, but step five does need some careful painting on the springs. The springs do show and are very prominent in the engine compartment. In steps six and seven you will be attaching the front suspension and the engine compartment to the monocoque chassis. Steps eight and nine are the building and attaching of the rear brakes. Steps ten, eleven and twelve are the building of the interior. Small parts and decals here need to be done carefully. Steps thirteen through eighteen are mostly about the clear parts and attaching them to the body. In step nineteen, it is time to attach the body to the chassis. The rest of the build is about the final parts and how you want to display the model. This is a great kit. With a little painting and a good understanding of the instructions this kit won’t cause you any problems. I finished mine in the box top silver scheme. I think the silver scheme is just too much silver for the eyes to take in. The next build will probably be in yellow or black. This kit gets high marks all around for fit, molding, decals, subject matter, and instructions. It is an easy kit to build, but it does have some small delicate parts. Overall, I would rate this as one of the best kits I have ever made and I will definitely recommend it to a friend.

Building this Carrera GT is a very long and painstaking process. Not because there is a lot of flashing on the parts, there is virtually none. There is at lot of detail paint work and test fitting if you want this to look like a real one. Before you start download some photos from the internet, body, interior and powertrain. While you on the internet download the assembly instructions from Tamiya. It is a PDF file and you will find it useful if you want to enlarge a particular step in the instructions. Study the instructions well before beginning, especially the paint coding and don't divert from their assembly sequence. Painting the body side panel inserts requires that they be painted prior to gluing them to the body. This allows you to polish these panels before assembly into the body. This is a task that you have to be extremely neat with, other wise the glue will ooze between the joints and show. I found it best to tack them in place from the back first with super glue gel and after an overnight drying I used a two part 5 minute epoxy again from the back. The decal film is very thin and some of them are so small such as the logos for the wheel center caps and the calipers you may want to call Tamiya in Torrance, CA (800-826-4922) and buy an extra set. If you call Tamiya buy an extra Carrera GT logo also for the rear facia. It is a metal part with a self adhesive back and does not stick too well. It is worth the few extra buck to have extras, believe me the GT logo will end up missing sooner or later. I was hired by a Porsche Employee that brought me two kits, to build one car and one rolling chassis and it was sure nice to have that extra GT logo and decal sheet. Want to take a look at my build. It it the Sublime Green one in Viewer Images for this product.

I was going through the Hobbylinc website looking for models to put in my wishlist when I came across this 1/24th scale Porsche Carrera GT from Tamiya. I was impressed with the pictures that others had submitted and also by the reviews, so I ordered this kit. When I received the model and opened the box, I knew immediately that I had made a good choice. Even before taking the sprues out of the plastic sleeves, I could see how clean and finely detailed the casting was. Then when I starting building the model I was again impressed with how well the parts fit together. I figured that if I took my time painting and building this, that I would end up with a very nice finished model even though I don't have a lot of experience. I used Tamiya TS17 gloss aluminum for the body and TS 33 dull red for the interior.

I really love this model, I took my time and am very pleased by the end product. I used the colors recommended by Tamiya and was pleased. There is plenty of engine and interior detail to please and body detail is as good as you are up to doing. The only problem I had was the fit of the t-bar roof, but that's not necessary to use. Also the boot doesn't open as nicely as it should, but I am probably to blame for that. I enjoy Tamiya models for their high standards of design and engineering of parts. I saw one of these cars in person the other day and I was awestruck, well, I'll never own one, but this model almost makes up for that!

This model took some time because I built an airbrush spray booth and ventilation system in the process and took extra time on learning airbrush painting, which was a lot of fun. This model was challenging getting a lot of the paint detailing which was fine work, especially with hands a bit shaky and eyes a little wonky, but what fun. The parts fit together very well and the finished product is solid and beautiful. I took a few small liberties on paint colors but most is as recommended in stock details. Overall time well spent on a model build!

The Japanese never fail to fail me. Tamiya is one of if not the best modeling company. The Porsche Carrera they produce is outstanding. Chasis is fully sperate from the body, engine is faithfully reproduced just like their Enzo. Only thing they missed was the carbon fiber but I have that covered.

Awesome but challenging model. Finished product looks great...not perfect (my fault) but very nice. I improvised a bit with the colors and like the way it turned out. I have 10 Porsche models (also one in the garage :) mostly Tamiya...this is one of their best.