Fujimi "Old Mini Cooper"
Many of us are familiar with the 1983-vintage Tamiya BMC Mini Mk 1 kit, and the much more recent Revell/Revell AG kits of a similar subject. The Tamiya kit (or should I say kits) depict a Cooper S, while the Revell kit is the earlier 1.0 liter Cooper. Both are full detail, and I can vouch for the Tamiya kits being very nicely done. I haven't gotten a Revell Mini yet, but I'm told that it is actually better than the Tamiya offering in many areas. But both kits depict an early (Mk 1) version of the venerable Mini. But the car was produced all the way up to 2000, so the Tamiya and Revell kits, as good as they are, don't cover the full gamut. That's where the Fujimi kit comes in.
The body shell has the door handles molded in place, and has a scored area for cutting out the optional sunroof. The plastic color is a rough approximation of the wold-famous British Racing Green. Being a curbside kit, the hood is sealed. Note the lack of external door hinges. This would make the Fujimi kit a Mk III or later kit. I am no expert on Minis, but that is one external clue that' hard to miss. The doors themselves were also slightly larger, and featured "roll up" glass, rather than the sliding pane type used on earlier Minis.
The chassis plate has decent surface detail, but much like the real car, there really isn't a ton to look at under there. The kit also includes an earlier style dash with the central gauge cluster- the proper dash is shown in the pic just above it. Unlike the Tamiya and Revell kits, this Mini has correctly oriented wipers... the former two kits contain only LHD wipers!
Here we have much of the interior, as well as the front and rear subframes, the former with the lower engine details molded in place. Later Minis were much more "plush" inside than earlier models. And I use that word in the context of the type of car we're discussing... you'd never mistake the interior of a Mini for a Rolls Royce cockpit in the first place!
This is the only Fujimi Mini I have sampled, but going by what I see on the sprues, they must have shared parts with an earlier Mini kit variant. The proper Rover grille is shown at top, while an earlier Mk I/II grille is included just beneath it. A front bumper decked out with spotlights is also included- and you may have noticed the Monte Carlo Rally licence plate on the interior parts sprue shown above.
The glass unit is all one piece, aside from the optional sunroof. All lenses are also separate, and will require careful detail painting where applicable.
The wheels are nice, though a tad plain as far as detail. Not shown are the poly caps which fasten the wheels to the suspension. Tires are molded in soft rubber and feature decent side and tread detail.
The small decals sheet includes gauges, Rover badges, stripes, and a choice of three pairs of plates.
Fujimi kit instruction sheets are typically well laid-out, containing no information about the actual car but plenty of tips for building the model.
All in all I like what I see with the kit, and I can't wait to see how it goes together. I've never had a Fujimi curbside kit fight me much during the building process, so hopefully I'll have a rather pleasant experience and a decent looking shelf model once it's all said and done.
That being said... stay tuned to see if I eat those words...
