# New Thunderbird 1 kit from...Deagostini ?!



## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

Like some, I was a little sad to see no new Thunderbirds kits announced from Aoshima at the recent Japan hobby show. We're past due for something to come out, like a new-tool Firefly heat-resistant fire busting tank (a thing that I believe has been shown in rough prototype form some time ago), or a super insane 1/350 Thunderbird 5 to go with the new-tool Thunderbird 3 or, well, anything. 

(and let us not forget all the other Gerry Anderson stuff that could be done!)

The only on-going new Thunderbirds thing is the weekly 'build a 1/144 Thunderbird 2' magazine thing from Deagonstini, a thing I've had to only look at due to money crunch. Then this suddenly appeared.

Hobbycom Mook Vol.001: 1/144 Thunderbirds No.1 by Deagostini | HobbyLink Japan

1/144 scale Thunderbird 1. 

Took some digging to find the page at the Japanese site. Man, they don't make it easy!

??????? ???????1????? | ?????????????

It looks like some kind of co-op deal with Hobbycom, whoever THEY are.

?????????????? ???????1????? - ?????????? - ??????????????????????

I *think* this is a complete kit, the listings are maddeningly vague on that aspect. They do talk about the 32 page magazine/book that is part of it that does all kinds of detail on TB1, including referencing all existing kits. 

TB1 in 1/144 is not a large kit. I can imagine the whole thing fitting inside the box that the 'Build a TB2' parts come in. Price is in the ballpark for a complete kit. 

Now, it may be nothing more than the Takara 1/144 toy TB1 from the '90s, rendered in kit form. That's not necessarily a bad thing.


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## edge10 (Oct 19, 2013)

I hope it is not their usual couple parts a month magazine things (avoids using more inflammatory words).

Page says it is 243mm which works out to around 9 1/2". Definitely not a big kit. Still, sure is purty.


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## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

edge10 said:


> I hope it is not their usual couple parts a month magazine things (avoids using more inflammatory words).
> 
> Page says it is 243mm which works out to around 9 1/2". Definitely not a big kit. Still, sure is purty.


I was looking around very carefully and specifically for that data. I can't find ANYTHING that says this is a series where you have to buy x number of consecutive issues to have the complete kit. It appears to be the first volume of what may be an ongoing series of 'complete rescue machine' mooks. (mook is a Japanese portmanteau for 'Magazine Book') 

I'm not at all sure what a vol. 2 might be, if we assume that everything has its origins in Takara's Thunderbirds toy offerings from the '90s. I guess they *could* break out some of the smaller rescue mecha as their own subjects, like the Mole (or anything based on that '60s British toy tractor that was their main go-to for tracked vehicles  ) or FAB 1, those are a decent number of pieces.

I mean, just going by the parts for the master Elevator Car in the TB2 Issue 1 set, there's a LOT of work being put into these things. I really wish I was able to keep buying the TB2 issues. 

I guess time will tell. Maybe Hobbycom plans on backing other shows or subjects for the Hobbycom Mook series.


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## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

OK, I couldn't take it anymore! I HAD to know what the deal is with this thing, so I found some money, ordered from Amazon Japan and now, here in my hands, is Thunderbird 1.

https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/4813520731/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

(here is a tip on ordering from Amazon Japan for those in the USA. When you get to check out, click 'Pay in Yen' if your credit card doesn't charge you for currency conversion. You'll save a few Dollars. If your CC does take a bite, use 'Pay in Dollars') (and yes you can avoid all this by buying from Hobbylink Japan  )

It's a complete kit. Stryene plastic, requiring glue and paint. There are option parts for the nose and the big blue band (reactor cover?) that are pre-colored so one COULD build this straight out of the box if one wanted, but it really needs paint. Roughly 30-some parts, very nicely molded. Waterslide decals.

I don't THINK this is just a repop of the Aoshima (nee IMAI via Bandai. whew those molds have been around  ) kit, nor does it seem to be the shell of the Takara toy from the '90s. Due to some interesting construction methods it almost looks like a soft vinyl garage kit ported to injection mold stryene. Detail is crisp, there's not a drop of flash anywhere and be careful, the nose part is SHARP!

You can build it with either skids, wheels or gear up. There's plenty of lightly engraved panel lines, most of the major 'ink and paint' lines from the filming miniature seem to be there but there's plenty of 'made up' stuff that some may want to carefully putty over. Hmmm, I have to do more research but I *think* they put the 'entry hatch' on the wrong side, on the 'top' instead of the 'bottom'. Unless that's meant to be the hatch for the 'spy eye' but if so, I don't think it's in the right spot. Like I said, research. Oh, no! Forced to dive into books and DVDs! Somebody HELP me! 

This is a very old school kit. locator pins are tiny and few. You may want to use one of those slower setting thicker liquid cements for the top and bottom of the wings. Sprue gates are not as well designed as most modern kits have them and you are going to require care in freeing the parts. Again, giving me the feeling of a soft vinyl or maybe resin garage kit converted to plastic. 

It's larger than I expected. If you've built the Aoshima kit in any of its iterations you know the size but MAN, it sinks in just how HUGE Thunderbird 2 is in 1/144! Wish I had the money to keep buying the parts for that beast. 

Oh, instructions. In Japanese but with some clear English for the assembly notes. Pay attention to them and dry fit before you start slapping glue on the plastic. 

The bound-on-box 32 page all color magazine is of course in Japanese but all the pictures are in English. There's some nice exploded diagrams for the internals of Thunderbird 1 if one wanted to go nuts with detailing (the diagrams pretty much conform to details Graham Bleathman came up with and has been refining in his cutaway illos since the '80s), pictures showcasing some functions and episode specific details and so on. There's mention of a section of 'TB1 Toys history' but the pics are surprisingly sparse, it must be mostly in the text. 

All in all, it's an interesting kit. I'm not sure if it REPLACES the Aoshima kit or should be looked at as an alternative, maybe the shapes and proportions are more accurate to one or the other of filming miniatures, I'm not smart enough to be able to tell. Of course it ALSO gives me a foolish desire to get the Aoshima kit to compare the two... 

ETA: And so, AFTER I write all this I head off to another site that happens to post instruction sheets along with the kits, and lo, I think this IS the Aoshima TB1 kit! 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10052737

So, if you don't have one you'd be paying a premium for the fancy box and the 32 page magazine. It still has an unusual assembly method that remind me of soft vinyl kits. You're paying about $10 USD for the fancy box and magazine. Hurm. Well, I can live with that. 

As an aside, that Aoshima TB1 is VASTLY different from the old IMAI 'play model' I built way back in the stone age of the late '60s. Wow. I think it's an all new tooling. I mean, if you pick up Aoshima's 1/350 Thunderbird 2 you can still see hints, the ghost of the old old IMAI kit. Not in Thunderbird 1.

I hope this helps someone on the bubble about ordering it!


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## Hunch (Apr 6, 2003)

Yes, it does seem to be the Aoshima kit as I have many of them! (I'm an Anderson junky) Its a super kit and with slight mods you can mimick the removable top "jacket" that was used to get at the wing gears. I did it on mine and my nect one will have the wheels in lue of the skids and I may make the TB1 decal more in the "TAB" cola font (was it TAB? I think so...the sixties and 70's are so far away" that you see in some episodes. Maybe even the little front gun/laser they supply.
If they (Aoshima or whoever ) put out a 1/144 TB2 kit to match the TB1 and a nice TB5 to match the beautiful TB3 Aoshima released I would be in heaven! I I've got the multi material 1/144 TB2 that was put out a while back (got it for like $150 or something...not the crazy prices they are going for now) But would need to cut out the cockpit and front underside windows. Since it seems to be Styrofoam that's dipped in a thin layer of resin this could be problematic, but when I build it -it will have to be done correctly! I cant half arse anything!
Jim (and the lovely Judy)


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## Trek Ace (Jul 8, 2001)

I've always been a big fan of Thunderbirds as well as the other Gerry Anderson shows. I remember tuning in to Fireball XL-5 back in the early sixties - and I was hooked from that point on, with the possible exception of Supercar and The Secret Service. I always kind of envied the Brits and their approach to visual effects over what we were doing here in the states (employing in-camera marionettes and models on wires as opposed to our use of bluescreen and opticals). It looked like they were having much more fun at it, too!

I have many of the Thunderbird and Captain Scarlet kits and have enjoyed them all. I would certainly enjoy more of them, and in larger scales. While I probably wouldn't subscribe to the 1/144 T1 kit (since I already have the Aoshima), I would definitely be in for a 1/144 Thunderbird 2 or three kit.

With the amazing references we have access to now with the recent Blu-ray releases of both the TV series and movies, as well as the many printed and online resources, there has never been a better time to model these craft. I can only hope that there will be more kit releases in the future.

Thunderbirds Are GO!


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## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

I'm still a little depressed that Aoshima hasn't announced any new Thunderbirds kits. I'm pretty sure they've got a new-tool Firefly (a tank to fight fires, not the spaceship from the same named series. Just in case someone does a keyword search and misses the context  ) (based yet again on that venerable British toy tractor that was used so many times for so many vehicles  ) that's ready to go, and by the same token, using shared tooling, they could always do a large scale kit of the 'transmitter truck' from 'Sunprobe'. 

And as impossible as it likely may be, I WOULD like to see a 1/350 Thunderbird 5 to go with the new-tool Thunderbird 3. Wouldn't that be a magnificent display?

OTOH, I really wish Aoshima would dip their toes in bringing some kits from other Gerry Anderson shows out. Some new tooling for various Captain Scarlet kits would be helpful. New kits from UFO would be a dream. How about a decent Stingray? A Supercar in 1/24 scale to place among other model cars? Be bold! They'll sell!


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## Hunch (Apr 6, 2003)

Steve H said:


> I'm still a little depressed that Aoshima hasn't announced any new Thunderbirds kits. I'm pretty sure they've got a new-tool Firefly (a tank to fight fires, not the spaceship from the same named series. Just in case someone does a keyword search and misses the context  ) (based yet again on that venerable British toy tractor that was used so many times for so many vehicles  ) that's ready to go, and by the same token, using shared tooling, they could always do a large scale kit of the 'transmitter truck' from 'Sunprobe'.
> 
> And as impossible as it likely may be, I WOULD like to see a 1/350 Thunderbird 5 to go with the new-tool Thunderbird 3. Wouldn't that be a magnificent display?
> 
> OTOH, I really wish Aoshima would dip their toes in bringing some kits from other Gerry Anderson shows out. Some new tooling for various Captain Scarlet kits would be helpful. New kits from UFO would be a dream. How about a decent Stingray? A Supercar in 1/24 scale to place among other model cars? Be bold! They'll sell!


Oh, I totally agree with everything you said! I picked up a million of the "Mole" kits in case they dont put out any more of the "Tractor" based kits I can scratch my own. I grabbed a couple of the recovery vehicles and grabbed a TB4 but a re-tooled TB5 would be a welcome addition if it was scaled to the TB3, but I'd take it in any scale if it were more accurate!
Totally FAB!
Jim and Judy


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## SUNGOD (Jan 20, 2006)

So I'm still not clear. Steve says it's not a repop of the Aoshima kit and Hunch says it does appear to be the Aoshima kit?


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## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

SUNGOD said:


> So I'm still not clear. Steve says it's not a repop of the Aoshima kit and Hunch says it does appear to be the Aoshima kit?


Sorry, I thought I added a coda that corrected myself.

As far as I can tell this specific product IS a re-pressing of the CURRENT Aoshima Thunderbird 1 kit. I don't know if the additional molded in color nosecone and fuselage ring parts are new to this or also part of the Aoshima tooling. 

What confused me, I have such strong memories of the old '60s IMAI (later Bandai) TB 1 kit with it's 'play model' features I was caught by surprise. 

It's a nice looking kit altho it could have used a little better engineering in how the sprue gates are attached. 

I'm pretty sure the current Aoshima TB1 is still available, and it's cheaper than this release. The only reason to buy this is just to have the box and the attached magazine (all in Japanese naturally), or for 'bragging rights' because it's a pretty unusual item. I guess I had expectations that Deagostini would have done more to 'add value' to the kit such as adding the remote camera drone, or some of the weapon variations, or something. 

Does that help?


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## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

Hunch said:


> Oh, I totally agree with everything you said! I picked up a million of the "Mole" kits in case they dont put out any more of the "Tractor" based kits I can scratch my own. I grabbed a couple of the recovery vehicles and grabbed a TB4 but a re-tooled TB5 would be a welcome addition if it was scaled to the TB3, but I'd take it in any scale if it were more accurate!
> Totally FAB!
> Jim and Judy


I'll tell ya. I was mystified for YEARS about that tractor. Things I had read often identified it as a Marx toy but never went into any detail, the awhile back I picked up yet another Japanese book "It's Thunderbirds' Century modeling manual A Revised Edition" (2004 Dainippon Kaiga, 3,800 Yen, ISBN 4-449-22852-2 I believe this is the company that publishes Model Graphix magazine) and lo, holy crap, page 48 there's an entire expose` of the Vickers 'Vigor' tractor toy, made by Victory Industries in 1960 and wow, the Century 21 folks really didn't do too much to the 'base' part of that toy at all. 

You know what? I am kind of surprised that Aoshima hasn't just cranked out a model reproduction of that toy for the nostalgia crowd (and all the lads who want to scratch build their own Anderson inspired machines  )


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## SUNGOD (Jan 20, 2006)

Steve H said:


> Sorry, I thought I added a coda that corrected myself.
> 
> As far as I can tell this specific product IS a re-pressing of the CURRENT Aoshima Thunderbird 1 kit. I don't know if the additional molded in color nosecone and fuselage ring parts are new to this or also part of the Aoshima tooling.
> 
> ...




Yes thanks for that but obviously until somebody compares them directly we won't know for sure. I've got the Aoshima kit which is nice but on mine there's what appears to be a tiny piece of plastic (which looks like it shouldn't be there) right on the end of the nose cone (which is a bit annoying). It's not as sharp like the new TB3 kit or what the De Agostini kit sounds like.


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