In the near future, I want to build a Panther, so, while at the Hobby Store, I picked up Tamiya’s old Panther A kit on sale for less than GM w/ no shipping. I opened the box and saw it was an OLD kit. The date on the lower hull was 1969, 1 year older than me, and I am old!!!. It also has the good old motorization holes and such which can be remedied pretty easily. I plan on using Aber PE and Barrel w/ MK tracks, so all the little bits and pieces are not of much concern to me. My question lies with the basic accuracy of the kit. Is it way off? I have several books on the panther, one has a bunch of line drawings for several different A’s so I can compare, but I figured I would run it past you guys and see what your thoughts were.
It’s not very accurate. Everything I have heard is that it is just plain bad. I have one I did 10 years ago. My fit was just OK, but it has since become a test bed for various modelling techniques. I know someone out there will be able to point out the specific problems with accuracy. If you want a good A, the Dragon kit is the way to go they have a Normandy 60th anniversary version with an aluminum barrel.
Just bin it and use all the aftermarket stuff on a Dragon Ausf A
sory to put it that way
but the Tamiya turrets way way off, the wheels are one sided and not enough of them and the hull isnt very good
Ted, Jason is right on. It is a VERY inaccurate kit. The two biggest problems are that the turret size is way off, and they left off the middle set of road wheels. I fixed the turret problem by buying a resin turret from Armor Research, but it is no longer available. I fixed the roadwheels with a set of white metal inner wheels also from Armor Research. Great Models has two different sets of inner road wheels in stock. arc5009 is the white metal set I used and run $10.00. arc5004 is molded in plastic and costs $17.00. But it fixes some other problems with the running gear, I believe. Another item you might want to consider is arc1006. It is a set of screens for the engine grills. It runs $6.00 and is well worth it.
Claymore scratch built a new turret for his A for the Panther group build a year ago. You may still be able to find that topic in the archived area. There’s a lot of data there on what members did to build their Panthers. Claymore and I are the only ones that tackled the Tamiya A, though.
I also used the MK tracks on mine. I’ll leave my feelings on them for another time! (But they sure look great!)
As for the Aber PE set…I’m thinking it might be for either the Italeri A or the Dragon A. Either way, you might have problems using some of the set on the Tamiya.
Tamiya’s other Panthers (the G’s) are all beautiful kits. Don’t be turned off of them by their ancient A.
The Tamiya is either a “fun, slap it together” build or a challenging “wow, what do I need to do to accurize this thing” build. It’s your choice.
How bout I just build it OOB and practice my zim on it and camo painting. Live and learn. it was $15 so I am not out that much. Thanks for your input. It will make a good test bed.
The old Tamiya Panther A is good for practice because it’s cheap.
For the best Panther 1:35, I agree with crockett that it’s Dragon’s Panther A Early Type released in 2002. Here’s a finished one, OOB :
Ted, I too was bamboozelled into that kit because of the price. I was rounding off an order from Tower last year and I thought it was an outstanding deal, a Tamiya Panther for $14. Well, $14 worth of scrap…I should have checked, but it was an impulse buy.
Ted- you’re Panther problem gave me an idea for a group build. The “This isn’t what I thought it was when I bought it build”. We can build all those crap kits or useless AM parts we bought because of whatever reason. I can build a Panther A with that useless piece of junk Zimmerit I bought.
I picked up a couple of these kits a few weeks ago for $12 on sale, just because I had nothing else to build. I knew getting them they were old kits and not very accurate, but I figured what the heck for the price I could practice different things with them.
