saw on a post on another forum that said Tamiya was bankrupt and was going to be sold to a group of investors.Can anyone give us the truth on this matter?it would be bad news if this turns out to be true.....larry

If it's chapter 11 style, not necesarilly good or bad in the long run. They get to stave off the creditors and reorganize.
If they are being sold toa group of investors that would remain to be seen depending on the outlook of thoise investors.

Googled "Tamiya Business News" and didn't turn up anything about a bankruptcy. I did learn that Japanese sales account for 70% of Tamiya's total. I would not have thought it was that high...Heck, I thought I personally accounted for at least half a percent... #:-)

Shaun

Looks like Imai models went bankrupt. Can't find anything in the Tamiya site or on google to indicate Tamiya is having any solvency issues.

Just to be on the safeside, I think I will head over to HLJ and order a couple of Tamiya kits... Would be really bad news if they went down...

please understand Im not trying to get anything started or its not a conspiracy to get everyone to rush out and buy up all the available tamiya kits,Im just trying to find out if the rumor is true or its just that a internet rumor!if for some reason it was true then that would be very bad news for us.thanks for feed back larry

Highly unlikely. A search through all the news sites (international too) that I know of report: nothing.

Don't worry about it Warhog! You didn't start anything but us thinking and Googling, which is what these forums are all about.

Cheers,

Shaun

If tamia did go bust the I'd bet the moulds would be offered to other model companies to help pay off debt also. the owner of my local model shop told me that now the father has stepped down and the son runs it he's more into R/C so maybe ehy theres been a lack of kit issues but It ties in with some of these re-tools popping up as its less money than a full new kit and trying to stay in the market and even if they do go bust we've all got loads of unbuilt kits just wait a few years and sell them off that kit pile of doom will soon be a gold mine.....not that I want to see them go bust

Ola People

Just saw the headline and had to think of a chat I picked up from the owner of a local hobby shop I visit frequent.

A customer was talking about how nicely the new tamyia moldings were and the LHS owner agreed with that but shortly after that he said that tamyia was planning to let drop all the new molds and he said some things weren`t right at Tamyia and that was as far as I could hear it as the chat switched topic

Now I don`t know more about this subject but I just wanted to tell you guys this

I believe Tamiya had a problem with one of their Japanese distributors going bust and there was a legal wrangle over ownership of kits, this was a month or so back, could be a Chinese whisper of this story that you're hearing.

Happy modelling
Ant

if so thats good news!would be hard to imagine 1-35th scale modeling without tamiya

1/35th modeling with out Tamiya?

Italeri,
Dragon,
Trumpeteer,
AFV club

There was a thread about this same subject on ML awhile back. A couple of people from Japan chimed in and stated that Tamiya was not having financial problems. Seems to be rumor only.

Tamiya hasn't made any major new releases of armor models lately, but other model companys are releasing a deluge of new kits. Out of the last 80 kits I purchased, only 10 of them were Tamiya. Of the next 10 kits I plan to purchase, only one of them is Tamiya.

Don't take me wrong, I cut my teeth on Tamiya models and love the way they go together and will buy any new WW2 kit they release.

I don't think we have to worry about Tamiya going under, they'll be around for a long time.

As for 1/35 scale modeling without Tamiya, we gotta remember that Tamiya was the company that standardized 1/35 scale and everyone else followed thier lead.

After living here in Japan for 2 years Tamiya seems to be healthy and doing well. They have their new Masterworks line out now and its doing well here in Japan. Most of us wouldn't buy a built kit anyway but its what is selling here in Japan. I think they'll be around for while longer, but they are shifting in a different direction than most of us would like I can see Tamiya more as a high end toy dealer and R/C company within the next 10 years or so. I hope I'm proved wrong I like some of their stuff. STUG

i do also believe that Tamiya is not going down. Being ahead for so many years even with competition they can put up with no problem, and remember they have the R/C part which other companies do not have . Anyway i hope its only a rumor cause every company that takes out is a loss for us

If you search the news probably nothing will come up about the Tamiya being taken over thing, because it is not "/news". They have been talking about it for months. Besides, Tamiya is the "giant" in toys and models, but only a small company when compared to other Japanese companies that go bankrupt, and probably "/news" like that won't make headline in Japan.

It may be a rumour. But people who said Tamiya in good shape is also guessing. People always assume Tamiya makes lots of money from R/C. But people in the R/C trade told me it was not the case.

Business is business. Any company can go busted. Changing ownership is a common phenonmenon.

Let's stop guessing. The reality is that if Tamiya are not bringing us new kits, let it be. DML, AFV Club, Academy and Trumpeter are releasing more than we can finish, not to mention the occassional surprises from Tristar and Tasco.

Tamiya going under?! Impossible, not with the amount they charge and the number of people who buy their kits!!

Seriously, I'd hate to see Tamiya go under.... their kits are too good to lose! But they could be having money troubles - notice the surging amount of re-releases they're putting on the market, and how few "new" kits they're actually making...

Then again, I don't know how or why they'd have money problems... they have a dedicated fanbase (us), incredible quality, healthy profit margins and backup sources of income (R/C, Mini-4WD,etc) But then, I'm not exactly the authority on big business...

here to kill this rumour I just got off the phone with the dutch tamiya department no such thing is going on...

tamiya is one of the worlds most stabile modelmanufacturers.

so its NOT TRUE tamiya is staying alive.