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Some time last week I spotted this on eBay: a part built, possibly not complete, 1/12 example of the ugliest Lotus ever ... I was tempted as it's a metal chassis, hard body car, but I did wait for the price to plummet before I clicked on "Buy it now"

It's already arrived, but I need to go through it to see what's missing. In the meantime, these are some of the pics from the listing:

Cool. Actually appears to be older than the first Tamiya.

interesting kit, nice find, got adjustable wheelbase, cute.

Edou wrote:

Cool. Actually appears to be older than the first Tamiya.

I haven't had much luck on finding information on Nichimo's history, one site implies the release date of the display kit (Nichimo ref # SD1201, basically the same body but with an interior and more realistic chassis) is 1973/1974, another cites it as 1970 something.

The only thing I can find on the car (ref RC1201), parts & documents that looks anything like a date is 1978, which is on the uprated (540 capable) MSC in the kit, and a reference to the same thing in the manual.

TBH I'm skeptical that any example of this car would predate the earliest Tamiya cars, definitely not this one.

Nice little car i almost purchased a Nichimo BMW with the same chassis a while ago but decided against it last minute as i could not track down any info on them and was not sure what the spares supply would be like. You have been doing some odd ball cars lately JR are you getting bored with your Tamiya?

Top !!! An Europa. Rarity and very pretty car. Another killer's RC to come

tamiya wrote:

Nice little car i almost purchased a Nichimo BMW with the same chassis a while ago but decided against it last minute as i could not track down any info on them and was not sure what the spares supply would be like. You have been doing some odd ball cars lately JR are you getting bored with your Tamiya?

Bored? A little, but it's more to do with prices - the only time I've seen numbers spin up so fast was when I accidentally filled a car up with diesel using a truck pump - 80 litres in about 4 seconds but I digress - it seems to me that there are no Tamiya bargains any more, and prices seem to have gone up 50% in six months.

The advantage of more obscure brands like Spital, Nichimo, and to a certain extent, Mardave, is that you can get 2 or 3 good ones for the same price as one poor Tamiya car ... the disadvantage is spares - you either have to buy another whole car & hope the bit you need is present & unbroken, do without, or make your own ... but some Tamiys cars/parts are like that already.

stingray-63 wrote:

Top !!! An Europa. Rarity and very pretty car. Another killer's RC to come

Pretty? Really? It looks like Lotus started to build a ute, then made it pointless by making it too low & sticking the engine in the load bed

Some pics...


Box looked better on the eBay listing..






I guess that's the price in JPY?




















Standard setup is for four "C" cells...

Note two MSCs - purple one is for 380 motors, red one has thicker wire & can handle a 540 (woo!)





I guess that's a date?

Evidence of at least two types of (incorrect) glue...




Lots of parts seem to be held on with vintage double sided tape...





Also this ... it appears to be a ginger rectal hair





Manuals are interesting - build manual 99.99% in Japanese, sheet showing spares/upgrades & prices, and two pages of typed American English (with some occassional Japanese Engrish) for the Occidental builder...




Gearing options depend on track type and battery type...




Full set of transfers: