Anyway, back in Japan for a holiday... and old cars are invisible. I haven't seen anything over a few years old... very frustrating.
On the model front I have found a surprising Showa model: it is a double kit of Honda Cub scooters in 1/35 scale from the Chinese company Diopark. In case you don't know what a Honda Cub looks like, this is one:
The Diopark kit comes in a rather unexciting box, but the contents are promising:
The little extras are a lot of fun, and it'll be interesting to see how I can use them. I just wish that we had figures of Japanese civilians from the 50s and 60s... it's deeply frustrating that we can have the cars, structures and now motorcycles of the period, but not the people to give the dioramas real life. Converting European civilians with Asian heads is the only solution I can come up with.
In addition to the Cub, I also picked up a Tamiya bicycle... by removing the crossbar and adding a basket I can make a civilian bike. I'll get a few more of these... just dump the Germans that come with them. There should have been two bikes in the kit, but someone nicked the other one.
Won't be going back to Leopold models again in a hurry!
Much, MUCH better than the Arii/LS Showa diorama kit cycles.
