Another legend calls it a day - Tamiya, the man who brought perfection to plastic race car models, dies at 90
SHIZUOKA (Japan): Chairman of the Japanese plastic model kit maker Tamiya Inc., Shunsaku Tamiya, known for its radio-controlled cars and Mini 4WD models, has died, the company has announced.
He was 90, Kyodo News reported.
Tamiya, who died of undisclosed causes, was credited with raising the global profile of the Shizuoka-based toy maker. While the funeral was held privately by close relatives, the company plans to hold a memorial event.
The Shizuoka native long served as the company's president, helping raise his hometown's standing in the plastic model industry through trade and hobby shows, according to the maker.
After graduating from Waseda University in Tokyo in 1958, he joined Tamiya Shoji & Co., which was then operated by his father, Yoshio.
Tamiya became president of the company in 1984 and was named chairman in 2008.
For the record, Tamiya led the company that bore his family's name for more than four decades, turning it into one of the world's largest makers of build-it-yourself plastic model kits of race cars and military vehicles.
Since producing its first such kit in 1960, of the Japanese World War II battleship Yamato, Tamiya Inc has become a globally known brand that also produces remote-controlled cars.
Under the leadership of Tamiya, who replaced his father as the company's president, Tamiya Inc won popularity worldwide for making kits that excelled in quality and historical detail.
In 1967, one of its miniature models so faithfully reproduced a Formula One racing car, down to the location of a starter battery beneath the driver's seat, that the maker of the original vehicle, Honda Motor, wondered if he had access to trade secrets but decided to let it pass.
His pursuit of accuracy also once took him to the embassy of the Soviet Union in Tokyo, where he sought details about Warsaw Pact tanks. This drew the attention of Japan's public security bureau, which placed him under surveillance for a time.
Tamiya was serving as the company's chair at the time of his death. According to the company, he still enjoyed standing at the entrance to an annual trade show near Tamiya's headquarters in Shizuoka, a city south of Tokyo, to watch the children come in.
Although the company continues to produce model kits in Shizuoka, it also opened a factory in the Philippines in 1994. -- Agencies
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Borneo Post
a minute ago
- Borneo Post
Trump announces 100 pct chip tariff, pressuring Asian producers
An employee works at a semiconductor chips factory in Huai'an, in eastern China's Jiangsu province on April 29, 2024. – AFP photo TOKYO (Aug 7): Donald Trump has announced a 100 per cent tariff on semiconductors from firms that do not invest in the United States — sparking volatility in Asian chipmaker shares today. The US president unveiled the levy at the White House on Wednesday ahead of the imposition of sweeping tariffs on goods from dozens of countries, with chips so far exempt. It comes with the United States and China locked in a high-stakes race to develop the high-end semiconductors used to power artificial intelligence systems. 'We'll be putting a tariff of approximately 100 per cent on chips and semiconductors, but if you're building in the United States… there's no charge,' Trump said. He did not give a timetable for the new levy, which he has repeatedly threatened in the past, to be enacted. Arisa Liu, senior semiconductor researcher at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, said it would impact the 'strategic direction of global semiconductor companies'. 'Since the United States is the world's largest player in AI and related high-performance computing, this will have a relatively greater impact on companies involved in advanced processes,' she said. 'The highest-end semiconductors will be excluded,' Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis, told AFP. But 'this kills producers of low-end chips', including those based in Malaysia or China, she warned. Today, shares in Taiwan's TSMC — world's largest contract maker of chips, which counts Nvidia and Apple among its clients — soared nearly five per cent after the government said the company would not be affected. Taiwan is a global powerhouse in semiconductor manufacturing, with more than half of the world's chips and nearly all of the high-end ones made there. 'Fight for Malaysia' Trump has previously accused Taiwan of having stolen the US chip industry, and earlier this year, TSMC unveiled a plan to invest an extra US$100 billion in the United States. Samsung Electronics, which is pumping billions into the United States, rose more than two per cent in Seoul, but a range of Japanese chip-making shares sank on the news. Apple is also investing an additional US$100 billion in the United States, Trump and the US tech giant's CEO Tim Cook announced Wednesday, with Cook calling it 'the largest investment Apple has made in America'. Malaysian trade minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz told parliament today that the country, a key chip manufacturing hub, was seeking an explanation from the US side. 'We will continue to fight for Malaysia to ensure that any policy changes or exemption criteria are communicated and negotiated in advance, and that Malaysia's position as a strategic partner is preserved,' he said. Chiang Min-yen, a non-resident fellow at the Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology, said the tariff would hit legacy chipmakers who don't have the deep pockets to invest in the United States. 'Most of the legacy chip manufacturers in Taiwan, in the US, even in Japan… all face very serious, unfair market competition from Chinese competitors,' he said. If US policies undermine these companies' production efficiency, the Chinese competitors 'will be able to more easily enter the global market' and come to dominate the field in the future, Chiang told AFP. That 'would be very harmful for US industrialisation policies', he warned. 'In the end, we may have to rely more on the Chinese legacy chips, and it would hurt our cybersecurity or even national security.' – AFP Asian semiconductors tariffs trump us
Sinar Daily
31 minutes ago
- Sinar Daily
Electric 'air taxis' could debut in Japan from 2027
ANA and California-based Joby Aviation said they will establish a joint venture with a view to deploying more than 100 of the five-seater aircraft. 07 Aug 2025 05:54pm An ANA spokesman told AFP on Thursday that the aircraft, designed to carry a pilot and up to four passengers at speeds of up to 200 mph (320km/h), could be in service from as early as 2027. - Photo source: Joby Aviation TOKYO - Airline ANA said Thursday that, together with a US start-up, it hopes to have electric "air taxis" whizzing over Japan from as early as 2027. ANA and California-based Joby Aviation said they will establish a joint venture with a view to deploying more than 100 of the five-seater aircraft. Flying taxies will "revolutionise our air mobility", Koji Shibata, president and CEO of ANA, said in a statement Tuesday. An ANA spokesman told AFP on Thursday that the aircraft, designed to carry a pilot and up to four passengers at speeds of up to 200 mph (320km/h), could be in service from as early as 2027. The project primarily envisages trips between Narita and Haneda airports and Tokyo, although the routes can diversify in the future. Currently, a car or train ride between central Tokyo and Narita typically takes an hour or longer, but Joby's five-seater can shorten this to around 15 minutes, ANA said. There are no price details yet, but ANA wants to make the service as affordable as possible for the general public, a spokesman told AFP. ANA and Joby will make a public flight demonstration of the vehicles at the Osaka Expo in October. "Where ancient wisdom, legendary craftsmanship and soaring ambition converge -- that's Japan", said JoeBen Bevirt, founder and CEO of Joby Aviation. "And that makes it an extraordinary launchpad for redefining the future of air mobility". Joby's aircraft lift off like a helicopter, then transition to fly forward like a plane "with minimal acoustic impact and zero operating emissions", according to the firm. In December, flying taxi startup Volocopter said it was filing for insolvency, days after another German company in the field, Lilium, was saved from collapse. Volocopter had been aiming to enter the market in 2025 with its two-seater "Volocity" electric air taxi model. It suffered a setback when it had to cancel test flights in Paris during this summer's Olympics at short notice after the certification for its aircraft engine didn't come through in time. - AFP More Like This US producer-musician Sean "Diddy" Combs gestures in the press room during the MTV Video Music Awards at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, on September 12, 2023. Music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, who is to be sentenced in October for his conviction on prostitution-related charges, is seeking a pardon from President Donald Trump, one of his lawyers said August 5, 2025. "It's my understanding that we've reached out and had conversations in reference to a pardon," Nicole Westmoreland told CNN in an interview. Trump has indicated, however, that he is unlikely to grant a pardon to the 55-year-old Combs. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP)
The Star
an hour ago
- The Star
Bumble shares drop on subscriber decline, AI strategy concerns
The Bumble logo is seen on a smartphone in front of a stock graph in this illustration taken February 11, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration (Reuters) -Shares of dating app Bumble fell over 6% in premarket trading on Thursday, as investors reacted to a drop in subscribers and concerns about its ability to boost spending amid doubts over the pace of its AI innovation. Faced with falling user engagement driven by persistent inflation and stagnant innovation, Bumble and its larger rival Match have been revamping their apps to win back subscribers. "While we're not overly optimistic on the industry, sentiment in the space is already anemic," analysts at RBC Capital Markets said."..It may not yet be the darkest before the dawn," they dating app's total paying users fell by 8.7% to 3.8 million in the second results come after Match Group, parent to Tinder and Hinge, exceeded quarterly revenue expectations on Hinge's strength and new leadership focus, although it logged a 5% decline in paying users, reflecting sector-wide a bid to tackle persistent "dating fatigue", Bumble has turned to AI-fueled innovation, which is expected to provide a much-needed boost for the dating app operator as it struggles with fading investor confidence in recent of the Austin, Texas-based company have lost about 6.2% so far this year. The stock trades at 7.96 times its projected earnings for the next 12 months, compared with 14.64 times for Match Group. (Reporting by Joel Jose in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema)
