Bandai Nissan Be-1 1/24

[galaxyg]

Background:

That a model kit exists of one of Nissan's late 80s "pike cars" is quite an unusual thing. Once I discovered it existed, I had to have one once I could find one at a reasonable price - the combination of unusual kit and 80's JDM is hard to resist. It's one of Bandai's very few forays into car models, and it's a shame they didn't do more at the time. The kit is from 1987 so it's been waiting nearly 40 years for someone to assemble it. Not being a fan of yellow paint (the "standard" colour for the Be-1), it seemed the ideal opportunity to try out some of Tamiya's aircraft spray paint, in a Nissan Figaro-esque shade.

Pros:

It's easy to assemble and all fits together well. The body has a good shape and it's pretty robust - thicker than the usual Japanese model kit. The roof can be made open or closed - and there's a good deep moulded scribing line on the inside of the roof making opening it up easy. The panel lines are all good and deep. The seats recline! Pointless but interesting. The indicator and brake light lenses are all moulded in orange/red plastic.

Cons:

The main transparent part for the windows is too thick and causes some unrealistic distortion when looked through, especially around the edges. The chassis is super simplified and there is no engine. The instruction manual and therefore also the painting instructions are only in Japanese.

Verdict:

It's a simple fun kit of a simple fun car, but builds into a nicely realistic model.

Build notes:

Built over 8 days in March 2025. The exterior is painted in Tamiya AS29 Grey-Green IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) and clear coated in Mr Hobby Super Gloss. I've added some JDM number plates and some seatbelts on the rear seats, plus some card to make the body-colour interior of the B and C posts. Everything else was part of the kit, including that cute backpack.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Badge73]

Alright, this is great. You are right, window are thick but they don't take away from it at all. Nice work. Good color choice.

[karbuildr]

I think you did a bang-up job, looks very nice.

[SpikeSchumacher]

Cute little bugger. 😉

[Roger U]

Very nice. Cleanly built and nice paint.

[happy grumpy]

Absolutely nailed it. Great color choice BTW. Alas, the windows in models are always a bit problematic. They have to be thicker. If they were to scale they would be like, 0.010" thick which would be too  fragile and easily broken. Some manufacturers are better at it than others, all the same, your model is a fine example of what can be achieved with patience and dedication. Great work sir.

[Deathgoblin]

I love it!    It's adorable.

[ea0863]

I like the choice of model and colors used, but I LOVE the photography. I would love to know how you did it.

[PappyD340]

Super nice build, well done!

[Ulbo]

Very nice built👍

[galaxyg]

17 hours ago, ea0863 said:

I like the choice of model and colors used, but I LOVE the photography. I would love to know how you did it.

Thanks.

A Nikon D7100 DSLR with a 35mm Prime lens gives a decent amount of perspective. The Nikon's not especially new, I think I've had it 10 years or so.

Set the aperture to something like f/22 so there's no out-of-focus parts and then use a tripod so the longish shutter speed required gives no blur either. The longer shutter speed is needed as the f/22 will make everything darker otherwise. Having the entire car in focus helps give the impression of a larger object - real cars are almost always entirely in focus when photographed. It's probably the single biggest improvement in the quality of my photos once I started doing that.

There are 3 lights, one directly above the car so the darkest shadow is under the car rather than off to one side. Just as a real car casts shadows.

The plain "studio" background is a piece of thin grey card bulldog clipped to a piece of thicker cardboard, and the end of the grey card is curved up at the back to make an infinity curve in the background.  The car park background is two pieces of pre-printed A3 paper, one below and once behind. I made the walls/floor on them from taking photos of a real car park and then Photoshop.

A photo of the setup would describe all this better, perhaps I'll take one next time I'm having a photo session with my next completed build, which is coming along.

[slusher]

Beautiful Nissan!

[spencer1984]

Great build of a neat little car!