Big dissapointment for those waiting on Fujimi's DeTomaso Pantera

[ZoomZoomMX-5]

Glad I picked up my Marui kit about 10 years ago for about $30 delivered. Prices have increased a lot since then, and I expect they will only go higher now. Fujimi is okay if you don't otherwise have a Pantera, but it is rather shameful to see how far Fujimi has slipped. If this were 2006, a new Fujimi Pantera would have been twice as good as this, for a lot less $.

[petesy]

I have the Pantera from Marui and Gunze/Testor, as well as the resin Fujimi, and Rainbow Ten just shipped my plastic Fujimi yesterday. Maybe I can post some pics after my vacation next week.

All versions are workable, but the Gunze one will need a lot of work. The front window molding is unrealistically thick and deep. To make it look right one would need to cut it away, chop up the windshield and fit it from outside, while making new molding. It will also need quite a lot of scratch building for the interior. But it does come with Group 4 wide fenders and Campagnolo wheels.

The Marui one is very nice with optional opening doors, and the proportion looks good. The tyres are crap however, one of my kits have tyres pre-mounted on custom rims, the tyres melted into a goop so badly that even the rims are not salvagable. If you have the Marui kit, remove the tyres and throw them away. Don't even think about using them, they will melt into a mess eventually.

I bought the resin Fujimi kit when it first came out, I probably wouldn't bother with it if I was able to locate the Marui kit earlier. The body is comparable to the Marui one and it comes with nice machined and photoetch parts, but at $150 you are better off with the Marui kit.

It's a shame Fujimi is slipping into their "dark" cycle once again. I was expecting something like their 512BB where it would be a simple matter to open up the rear cowl and drop in a Mustang V8, but now it appears the chassis would need major work to make it anything but curbside.

[lovegt40]

does anybody make the wheels for the panteras? I have the Arii box (think same as gunze then) and also my wheels are gone at once.

Good I pay the model few euros,but as said before there is a great amount of work to make it a nice group4 looking car as this one I wpiòd like to build someday.

[Veyron]

I have the IMAI Pantera GTS kit, nothing in it is any good.

[lovegt40]

LOL, thats right,but is always better to start from something crappy than from 0 + plasticard.
General (very general..of course)shape is taken anyway....
Consider now I am deadly working on a ditech slot body that is much worst than any imai model ,but the subject is too cool...

[Veyron]

This is Fujimi's resin one built up....so they have a had a good looking Pantera in their hands.

[petesy]

I've found a Japanese site that compared the new Fujimi Pantera with the Fujimi resin, the Marui, the Gunze and the Eidai.

http://hirossijp.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2012/01/post-be6c.html

The molding looks crisp, but the greenhouse seems squashed.