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Tamiya Museum

Far far away in a country where they say the sun rises, some say there is a temple dedicated to static and RC models where the outmost mythical realizations of a manufacturer called Tamiya are gathered. Some also say that pilgrims prayed there for models to be re-released and these prayers were heard. Some even that the guys at the temple spend hours every day to clean innumerable finger prints left on the display windows... and hours to mop up drool puddles left by pilgrims in admiration trance .

We do have world exclusive pictures of the culprits:

The following animation is made of two pictures that were shot at a few seconds interval: you'll notice this unknown happy face when entering the temple and his reaction when staring at the first display.

In order to clarify all this and know the truth, I asked two friends of mine to go investigate at the risk of their life. Well... the truth is they had the chance to go there and they brought me back lots of photos . But since they refused to take me even in their luggage, I reveal who they are: the firt of them is F2G78, a member of the Vintage-RC forum. The second one is Kris from M3 Modélisme, a French RC store. These two guys are real RC fans, and more specifically Tamiya fans: I want to warmly thank them both since what you'll see here is their photos.

I did a zoom on purpose on one photo: if anyone reads japanese, please contact me if M. Tamiya direct line is in the list. Could be of some interest... .

The virtual tour

Thanks to F2G78 and Kris, 151 photos will give you the opportunity to virtually visit the Tamiya museum located at the brand's headquarters in Japan.

This is the tour program:
 an overview of the museum and of real-size modèles that Tamiya reproduces either in static or RC models (16 photos)
 static models and dioramas in which they are staged (70 photos)
 the "Mini" and "Junior" models (7 photos)
 the radio-controlled models (43 photos)
 miscellaneous (15 photos)

To start the tour, just click on the photo below: on each photo, you'll find 4 buttons. At the top center:
      go back to the previous photo
      start or pause the automatic slideshow
      go to the next photo

And the last button at the top right side:
      close the slideshow at any moment which gets you back right here

In case you forget these instructions when viewing, just point your mouse on a button and wait for the pop-up explanation.

Have a nice tour.

Special thanks

I want to thank Torstein Hønsi who is the designer of the Highslide JS galleries I use on this page to display the catalogues. The gallery code is open source, which means you can freely use it and modify it in non-commercial projects. If you are looking for a reliable gallery script that is easy to adapt to your needs, I recommend you to consider this great solution. Moreover, with Highslide JS, you benefit from a very skilled and reactive helping community (special thanks to Roadrash for her help).

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First publication: july 20, 2010 Last modified: september 10, 2010

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