Tamiya 1/72 Vosper Fast Patrol Boat Kit

The Tamiya PERKASA  model was released in 1972 I believe, that is the year I built mine. The quality of the model is excellent even by todays' standards and I wish Tamiya had offered something similar in contemporary American patrol boats (and I don't mean another flippin' PT boat model)!

 I was so impressed by the crispness of the hull, superstructure, and deck paint scheme I built it "as is" out of the box, with only a few items hand painted with a brush (my pre air brush days). But to give it a more "prototypical" appearence I sprayed the entire model with Testor's clear flat., It took away the toyish look of the colored plastic without painting the entire model with rattlecan colors..

If my memory serves me well, a few years back this model was offered as a R/C kit, complete with radio transmitter and receiver in the same model box.

Tankerbuilder: would love to see your Perkasa--I have not seen one yet that had all three screws motorized much less for RC. I did not think there was enough room inside the hull for three separate ESCs nor any kind of overt complexity even though the hull is rather sizable and begs for some realistic water for running in.

The kit is a very nice presentation, molded in a multitude of colors: red, grey (red/grey two tone hull), black, gold, clear, dark green and tan (display stand) if memory serves. Unfortunately I think every one of these molded-in-color pieces needs a redundant coat of paint to take away any toy-like quality that may manifest itself.

Hi:

To clarify this .There was another" Perkasa" type boat on the market at the time. Battery powered and definitely Not a true scale model . I believe it was by " True Line or Panda Toys "      T.B.

I remember when the Tamiya Perkasa was initially released - back in the late sixties or very early seventies. I'm pretty sure it's a Tamiya original - though I have a vague recollection that some other Asian company may have done a simplified copy of it. (I may be wrong about that though.)

The kit represented the state of the art in its day, and I suspect it still can hold its own quite well.

PTConsultingNHR

No sir, this man was asking about the Tamiya 1:72 PERKASA Class  FPB .... Not the Airfix or the Revell kits....

No sir, this man was asking about the Tamiya 1:72 PERKASA Class  FPB .... Not the Airfix or the Revell kits....

Now;

    That's one heck of a model .Can you imagine my reaction in 1980 when I bought one and found out the Hull was molded in two colors ? The workmanship in the moldings was first rate even then . After all , it was a " Shake and Bake Tamiya kit too !

    I powered mine with three direct drive motors and a electronic speed control for each motor  .I had to do some parts slightly over sized to get scale performance though.

     The running gear is definitely in scale .Remember all rudders and screws are overshadowed by the hull so in some cases they do look toy-like but aren't , believe me .      T.B.

My memory of the one I bult in the early '80s was that it came with both display, and running, running gear.,  

I want to remember (and memory is a fickle and unsure thing) that the outboard shaft penetrations in the hull, were "blind"--that you could slide in the scale shafts & props when not running, and still have a water-tight hull.

Thr kit I built had a quite excellent crew in RN attire.

I have one as a display model.  It's not that bad, sir.