Car Model Kits of Tokyo’s Legendary Akihabara Yodobashi Camera Store

I just spent a couple of weeks in Japan, my first trip there since I wrote about the Toyota Century assembly line five years back. Back in 2019, I bought some model car kits to bring home, but came to realize later on that I had failed to document just how thoroughly insane the kit selection is in that nation of fanatically devoted model builders.

To give you the idea, I dropped into the famous Yodobashi Camera store in Tokyo's Akihabara neighborhood, whose sixth floor boasts thousands of tempting car models, and photographed all of those kits.

Most of the kits found on the toy floor of the Akiba Yodobashi aren't even cars; if you seek to build a room-sized diorama of, say, the Battle of Tsushima, this place offers all the ship kits you'd need.

You might consider some of Yodobashi's countless military vehicle kits to be cars, technically speaking, but I'm limiting this article to ordinary cars, trucks and related vehicles.

Likewise, there's an entire long aisle devoted to motorcycle and scooter kits. Cool as the Aoshima 1/12-scale Honda Motocompo and Monkey kits are, out-of-control scope creep of this article had to be prevented.

Take my word for it, the selection of two-wheeler kits is staggering.

Then there are the invertebrate and dinosaur kits. You could get into real trouble in this place!

It took a great deal of willpower to put this model crayfish back on the shelf, I tell you what.

What makes this kit selection even better is that the dollar-to-yen exchange rate is extremely favorable for those bringing their greenbacks to Japan.

Most of these kits list for ¥1,500 to ¥2,500, which comes to about $10 to $16 at the time of this writing. Yodobashi will sell them to you tax-free, too, provided you show your (non-Japanese) passport and promise not to resell them in Japan.

Of course, the super-high-quality and/or extra-big kits sell for a lot more. I agonized over this incredible 1/32 Bandai reproduction of the "Ippiki Momojiro" dekotora truck from the 1970s Torakku Yaro movie series, the ¥17,620 ($115) price tag for which still seemed like a steal. Yes, Bandai makes a whole line of massive kits of the Torakku Yaro trucks—collect them all!

Considering that it took me several years to get around to building the Estima Police Interceptor (aka Cop Previa) kit, I knew that I'd never find time to build the orders-of-magnitude-more-complex Ippiki Momojiro dekotora kit, so I left it there. I may yet pay big yen to acquire a genuine NOS Mad Police Destroyer Nissan Cedric kit, though, and that would get assembled right away.

In fact, I visited some of the vintage-kit shops around Akihabara in search of Mad Police kits. Store employees were impressed that I was hip enough to seek out those kits, but they had none in stock. This is the Leonardo LG store, which I'll write more about later on.

Instead, I had to content myself with Yodobashi's numerous kei van kits. I wanted to get a kit I could build as a likeness of my daily-driven 1996 Subaru Sambar Dias II Maleza Super Charger, but how could anyone resist a Sambar fire truck kit?

I'm sadly lacking in knowledge of manga and anime, which was a problem since Yodobashi's selection of kits from those universes is overwhelming, to put it mildly. However, I did run across a big section of Initial D kits, which are in a different section of the store than the regular car models.

They've got aftermarket wheels in 1/24 scale, so you can customize your kits. And you should.

How about pre-customized kits, of which there are plenty? No model collection is truly complete without at least one apiece slammed JDM Toyota Hilux and Datsun 720 pickups.

As you'd expect, this place is fully stocked with paint and tools. You're not supposed to bring flammable liquids on airplanes, unfortunately.

Do Tamiya R/C cars count as model kits? Of course they do.

To add to the sensory overload, Yodobashi blasts their theme song (which borrows the tune from the Battle Hymn of the Republic) incessantly over the store's PA system, interspersed with descriptions of the floor guide in Japanese, English, and Mandarin. You'll get used to it, maybe.

Keep in mind that Yodobashi Camera is just one of many shops selling car model kits in the Akihabara neighborhood. I suggest bringing an extra suitcase just for kits when you visit Japan.

All right, here's the giant gallery:

Looking for a Toyota Crown Tokyo police car kit? A Nissan Terrano kit? The Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara has them.

The selection of vintage Skyline kits is staggering.

The Celica XX was known as the Celica Supra in the United States.

This is the right place to shop if you're in the market for vintage rally car kits.

Yes, there are JPN Taxi kits, because of course there are.