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TamiyaCon IX - A Show Report

What to do on a rainy day?

It was a 4 hour drive for me to go to TamiyaCon IV at Tamiya's North American headquarters in Aliso Viejo, California. And it was worth it! When I arrived at the show on Saturday morning around 11am it was a bit rainy and overcast. The rain was coming in waves and people were running around to avoid getting too wet. I neglected to bring a raincoat or umbrella. After all this was southern California... rain?!?! Walking up to the area near the front of the building I immediately noted the presence of several AFVs. An M3 Halftrack, a Ford-built Willey's Jeep, 37mm anti-tank gun, and a very nice M5 Stewart light tank. They were surrounded by onlookers and several men dressed in period clothing. Ahh...reinactors I thought. A good idea for a model show. There were also several sporty cars and motorcycles on display. The biggest draw in that location though was the large tent where people were picking up Tamiya kits at bargain prices. I thought about buying something. And even committed myself mentally to buying a Bradley if they had one. They didn't. But they did have a large assortment of other kits for sale.

Going inside I noted immediately that there was no entry fee. "Nice", I thought. There were people bringing in entries and carefully making their way with boxes to the display rooms. To the right of the main door was the Tamiya showroom. I imagine this is a scaled down version of their showroom in Japan. It had numerous kits and dioramas on display. I only wish the glass cases were a bit more condusive to photography. 

The first room I encountered was the Figure, Armor, and Dioramas room. At this early hour on the first day of the show I saw immediately that there were still lots of entries to come. But there were still quite a few to look at so after looking around a bit I began to shoot some photos. Oddly enough the first piece to grab my eye in the room was this enormous diorama of the USS Missouri (1:350) and 2 other ships. This dio was a "what if" topic on the subject of "what if the Missouri had been finished early and accompanied the Enterprise on her fateful mission to bomb Tokyo. The dio featured a cut-down third of the carrier as well as a supporting destroyer. The carrier even featured a cut-away section where it was sliced across the hull. This piece actually won the top honor at the show, the Master Modeler award.