Shunsaku Tamiya, the toymaker who inspired Adrian Newey and made Formula 1 history

"I must have been between eight and 10 years old, and I started assembling 1/12 scale Tamiya Formula 1 model cars in my dad's garage. These models had labeled parts, so you understood the terminology, and as you put them together, you began to understand how a chassis and all its components worked." This is how Adrian Newey , the most successful engineer in history, described how his interest in technology and racing cars began. And Newey wasn't alone .

Shunsaku Tamiya 's mark on the history of Formula 1 is indelible. Although the Japanese company has not released scale models of current Formula 1 cars for many years, in the 1970s the brand with the two stars represented something that transcended far beyond the world of hobbyism or collecting. In the era before computers and wind tunnels, much of the racing engineers' experimentation was done on scale models from the Japanese company. Such was their level of detail and faithfulness to the original model.

Tamiya's entry into the world of Formula 1 was entirely by chance, as its products were initially based on tanks, airplanes, and military ships. When injection-molded plastic began replacing traditional wooden or tin miniatures in the United States, Shunsaku Tamiya realized he needed to acquire this technique if his company wanted to have a future. As one of the first Japanese companies to master the art of injection-molded plastic, Soichiro Honda enlisted his help to implement it in his company.

Honda and Tamiya were both neighbors in Shizuoka , and in gratitude for their help, Soichiro secretly gave his friend Shunsaku the plans for the RA273 Formula 1 model before it was unveiled. This model was especially significant because its victory in the 1965 Mexican Grand Prix was the first win for a Japanese company in the world's top motorsport. This milestone meant that when the scale model of this car arrived in stores in Japan, it quickly sold out.

A realism never seen before

The extraordinary level of detail on that model, with a quality and realism never seen before, caught the attention of Richard Kohnstam , a shrewd British toy distributor. Having secured a distribution agreement for the United Kingdom, the Tamiya 1/12 scale Honda RA273 became a sales hit , quickly selling out with each new shipment arriving from Japan. And since shrewd people are the way to go, Colin Chapman , the unique genius behind Lotus , didn't want to be left out of the phenomenon.

At a time when Formula 1 rarely appeared on television, Chapman saw the burgeoning Japanese company as a perfect vehicle for promoting his brand and vehicles. This is how the collaboration between Lotus and Tamiya began. Nothing suggested that Tamiya would unwittingly cause Lotus' decline a few years later, but more on that later. The fact is that in 1968, Chapman launched the first sponsorship in the history of Formula 1 (Gold Leaf), and Tamiya was a key partner in his plans.

In 1968, Lotus won the Formula 1 World Championship with Graham Hill and the 49B model. Chapman saw an opportunity and gave all the plans for that car to Tamiya, so that it could become an even bigger commercial phenomenon than Richie Ginther's Honda . Now there was talk of a world champion car, built by a British team and driven by a British driver. The model was also offered in a 'Jim Clark' version in homage to the recently deceased Scottish driver.

The sales success was resounding not only in the United Kingdom but also in Europe and the United States. Although Chapman earned a small royalty on each unit sold, the Lotus boss's true success was measured by the number of homes worldwide that had one of his cars sold. One of those homes was precisely that of Adrian Newey , who had Hill's Lotus 49B as one of the first model cars he built as a child. It is no coincidence that Newey is now the owner of that Formula 1 car in its original form.

The change in the industry model

The calls to Tamiya from Formula 1 teams began to happen and they all gladly gave up the plans of their cars in order to get a piece of the advertising pie they had unintentionally created . Something similar began to happen with the car brands and after seeing how the entire range of Lotus street cars was in toy stores and hobby shops around the world, Porsche sought an agreement with the Japanese brand to release with them its first Radio Controlled scale competition car.

But let's return to Formula 1. At the end of the 1970s, many things were changing in the competition, which would ultimately mean the end of the Tamiya phenomenon. The live broadcasting of races, a result of pressure from Bernie Ecclestone , began to undermine the value of elements that provided returns to the sponsor, such as scale models in all their formats. Furthermore, teams, keen to protect their technological secrets, were increasingly reluctant to hand over their plans to Tamiya.

If Colin Chapman had foreseen the damage that handing over the plans for his cars to Tamiya would do, he probably never would have done it, but by the time he realized it, it was too late. When Chapman introduced ground effect with the Lotus 78 and, above all, with the perfected Lotus 79 , every engineer on the grid eagerly awaited the purchase of the Tamiya scale version so they could learn all its secrets and experiment with it. That was the beginning of the end for Lotus .

Those who made an exact copy of the model, as was the case with Tyrrell with the 009 model, only created a good, but never superior, car. However, Patrick Head , Williams' technical chief, realized with the Tamiya model of the Lotus 79 that its main area of improvement lay in improving structural rigidity. Thus, while Chapman continued to delve deeper into aerodynamics, Head created a Lotus 79 with a much stiffer chassis that, as a result, better took advantage of the ground effect.

From that moment on, Tamiya, faced with the difficulty of accessing car plans and the increasing royalties demanded by the teams, gradually began to abandon this segment of the business in favor of the flourishing radio-controlled model car sector. Other companies like Ebbro and Fujimi tried to fill the void but were unsuccessful. Shunsaku Tamiya, in his 90 years of existence, has always been a visionary , even in seeing that unrepeatable moments also have their end.