Box & Build Review 2: Arii 1956 Mazda T2000 Owner's Club Series (1:32 Scale)

I love commercial vehicles and oddball subjects. So when a kit clicks both of those boxes I'm going to be interested, even if said kit is not in a scale I would typically build.

Arii's Owner's Club Series of 1:32 scale kits has nabbed me twice for this reason. Though the kits are older and quite simplified, they look great when built up and offer some interesting subjects you won't find anywhere else. Several years ago I built a Daihatsu three-wheel truck from this series. I felt like the Daihatsu needed a companion, and I'd always wanted to build the T2000. Not to long ago I nabbed one for a decent price, and set to work.

Though the box art identifies the subject as a 1956, the T1100 replaced the Mazda Go three-wheeler in 1959, and was produced with various minor design tweaks until 1974. The T2000 (the 2000 referring to it's 2.0 liter four-cylinder engine), arrived for 1965. For a time they were also produced under license in Korea as the Kia Industry.

The three-wheel configuration was to take advantage of a tax loophole in Japanese vehicle registration. As such, the Japanese manufacturers produced a wide variety of three-wheeled commercial vehicles, the Mazda T series being one of them. These tricycle vehicles saved the buyer money as they were taxed at a much lower rate than a comparable four-wheeled vehicle. But don't let the truck's looks fool you. This was a deceptively large vehicle, with a payload capacity of nearly two tons! Even in 1:32 scale, the model is fairly large, and quite long- longer than a 1:25 scale regular cab long bed pickup.

As with all of the Arii Owner's Club kits, the box art is simple. Lots of white space, a small image of the vehicle depicted in the kit, and the Owner's Club logo.

A small cardboard "ribbon" holds the bagged sprues in place in the box.

Though simplified, the kit has quite a bit of engraved detail present. Here we have the cab casting.

The majority of the kit is molded in a medium blue.

Here we have the clear parts, including the terrible headlight lens/bezel castings, which are about the only demerit to the finished models appearance if retained.

Here we have the vinyl tires, metal axle, and four small screws.

The decal sheet is tiny, but includes body badging and even a label for the battery.

The front of the instructions sheet...

... and the back of the instruction sheet which has a list of the Owner's Club kits.

I think the T200 wouldn't look too out of place with a propeller coming out of it's nose. I used a small strip of plastic to cover a gap left from when the halves of the front fork were joined.

I lost the passenger's side mirror and opted not to try making a replacement. Maybe it got knocked off years ago and was never replaced.

This is what the business end looks like, minus two tons of fun.

Here we see the battery slung underneath the cargo bed, along with the spare tire and tail pipe, which was drilled out at the end for a more realistic look.

Companions. Here you can see my replacement headlight lenses, which I nabbed from a Revell '32 Ford. The supplied headlights are a bit too chunky and don't fit well in the first place. The two kits share similar parts breakdown and a near identical assembly sequence and look good displayed together. If the subject matter trips your trigger, I'd wholeheartedly suggest having a go at one of these kits.