BOX FRESH

Into radio controlled cars as a kid? Get ready to relive those Eighties childhood memories: this is the Tamiya Wild One, reborn as a real life off-road electric buggy. Oh boy, this is gonna be good

- TOM FORD

It sounds like a riddle, when you think about it: one of the most prolific carmakers on the planet doesn't actually have any real cars. It's reproduced some of the world's most iconic shapes, birthed its own concepts, has surfed the currents of fashion and technology during 77 years of existence, and been responsible for more joy than it's possible to measure. Tamiya is, in a small, quiet way, a legendary carmaker. And yet all it makes is toys.

But to describe Tamiya's output as 'just toys' is to miss the point by quite a - scale - distance, and to figure out why these little agglomerations of plastic and metal are so compelling, we need to know where it all started. So here's a little potted history of the art of tiny things. The man we have to thank was called Yoshio Tamiya, who founded the eponymous company in Oshika, Shizuoka City, Japan in 1946. Back then it was a timberyard and sawmill called Tamiya Shoji and Co, whose industrial eyes turned its gaze on wooden models in '48, as a side hustle. But that side project was a good one. Just five years later, the sawmill closed, and Tamiya became a specialised wooden model builder - which saw it through the rest of the Fifties. It wasn't until 1960 that the world saw the first all plastic kit, taking advantage of the detail that this then new material could offer - a 1/800th scale Yamato battleship. Then in 1962 the first motorised thing, a 1/35th scale Panther tank. Small steps that would lead to giant strides. And so it went on - Tamiya gently refining its processes and model lines, expanding and innovating, creating tiny slices of perfection. But in 1976, Tamiya produced a 1/12th scale Porsche 934 Kremer Turbo, kicked off the radio control car boom and secured its own legacy. If names like Sand Scorcher, Wild Willy, Avante, Hornet, LunchBox, Rough Rider or the Wild One are familiar, you're a Tamiya kid.