This tiny car was just looking up at me with its puppy-dog headlights and begging me to build it, so I gave in.
Here is the blurb from the side of the box (typed up exactly as on the side, grammatical errors included):
"Mazda used to produced 3-wheel trucks, and the first passenger car made by Mazda was the model 'Mazda R360 Coupe.' This model was mounted with 4-cycle 356cc, air-cooled 2-cylinder, 16hp engine, and the total weight was only 380kg. For this reason, it could run at high speed. The later model 'Carol' was produced on the basis of this model.
"In 1960, the model 'Mazda R360' was first introduced, but due to its limited number of seats it was less popular as compared with other models."
Basically the Mazda R360 was one of the first Kei Cars, which were a class of car with an engine size of 360cc or smaller. Although tiny it actually had four seats, but leg room in the back was at a premium. The wheelbase was smaller than 6' and it was lucky to reach 60mph.
The styling is beautiful, reminding me of something a child may have drawn in the 50s had you asked them to design a small car of the future.
Looking at photos of the real thing the model is really pretty accurate. The most obvious error is the ride height. When this kit was originally sold by the model company LS it has either a pull-back motor or a friction drive; either way built from the box the car looks as though it is carrying a heavy weight.
I added some split styrene tubing to create dummy axles and permanently fixed the wheels to these. This allows the car to sit at the right height.
Next job will be to fill in the slots in the rear wheel arches where the motor axles were originally meant to reside.
I still have a long way to go, but here is the car mocked up and into it's main sub-assemblies:
And a photo of the real thing... and this is the colour mine will be at the end:
And to show how small this thing is, here is the model with an Aurora-Model 1/32 Japanese schoolgirl for comparison:
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