Tamiya 1/24 scale
Toyota GR Supra

1/24 scale

by Brad Huskinson

1/24 Tamiya Toyota GR Supra

Kit #: Tamiya TAM24351

This kit was a gift from my son. He knows I’ve always liked this shape for a sports/race car i.e. the Ferrari 250 GTO and the Shelby Daytona Coupe are good examples.

The Kit

The build was really quite straightforward as is often the case with a Tamiya kit. Everything fit together incredibly well and was built absolutely box stock.

All parts are removed from the sprue with the best sprue cutters available in my opinion (Godhands) and cleaned up with sandpaper, sanding sticks and a new addition, a ceramic bladed scraper.

The ceramic scraper works great for removing mold lines and reduces the amount of sanding time considerably. X-Acto knives were also used along with panel line cutters.

Similarly painted parts are grouped together to save painting and clean-up time.

 
Lately I have been very carefully studying the instructions and making notes directly on them. Having built numerous kits, I look for building sequence issues that tend to cause trouble down the road and try to avoid them. Also, I’ve been doing much more dry fitting of parts and assemblies to find potential issues. I generally find a few!

Sticky Stuff

I use Tamiya Thin for unpainted parts and several different CA glues for the parts that have been painted. Testors Clear Parts Cement for windows and other clear parts.

Interior

The interior turned out great. I airbrushed most of the black parts with Mr. Surfacer 1500.

It gives such a nice realistic black non-shiny finish. To make the parts not look all the same, I use different amounts of clear flat.

The steering wheel grips and seat inserts are Mr. Surfacer Black and Gray mixed to add contrast and visual interest.

Details were picked out with different shades of silver on the end of a toothpick or very fine brush. 

Engine

This was probably the easiest part of the whole build!

The kit is a curbside model. Hood doesn’t open, nothing to see here.

Chassis

This is where the only portion of an engine can be seen. The chassis and many components were sprayed from the rattle can with Mr. Finishing Surfacer 1500 Black. Shake it up quite a bit, put in a container with fairly warm water for a few minutes, and end up getting an amazingly smooth finish. It also makes a great base for other paints such as metallics.

All of the exhaust assembly was first airbrushed with AK Black Base. Then the exhaust trough was airbrushed with AK Xtreme Titanium. The exhaust pipe(s) and muffler with AK Xtreme Duraluminum. These parts were all airbrushed using a Harder & Steenbeck Infinity with a .15 needle. After completing this portion of the build, I dusted the chassis with the Tamiya Weathering Master A weathering kit.

The wheels are a two part assembly with the base piece being black and a chrome spoke overlay. I hardly ever use pieces that come chromed in the kit without stripping them and apply whatever chrome looks best that I can paint for each specific look. This time, the Tamiya chrome looked great and not toy-like.
         
The stock tires were used, but slightly worn down using the wooden balls with a power drill and sandpaper jig that I made.

This works well to make the tires actually appear used. I use between 150-400 grit sandpaper or sanding block to achieve a particular look. This process eliminates the ever present seam that runs down the middle of the tread. Note: the tires shown are from a different kit.

The Body

I generally start any car kit build by working my way through painting the body the final color and clear coat. Then setting that aside for a long drying period. The body gets handled so much in the final assembly stages that it is easy to damage the paint. I want to make sure that the final clear coat is solid. I also do spoon tests for color with various primers and paints to get squared away before shooting the body. I have had to strip too many cars and it’s not fun.

There were minimal mold seams that needed attention. The whole exterior was very lightly wet sanded with Profile Accessories 2000-4000 grit sanding cloth. All body parts were then primed using Mr. Hobby Grey Surfacer to check for any imperfections in the plastic. If anything needed fine tuning, that was done. I then over sprayed the grey with Tamiya White Surfacer from the rattle can. Again using a warm water bath to heat the can and a fair amount of shaking.

I used the white, because the final yellow color is very sensitive to the base coat. Grey darkens and dulls the yellow, which I really wanted to pop out! Once dried, the primer was wet sanded using 4,000, 6,000, 8,000 and 12,000 grit Micro Finishing cloths. The body color was Splash Paints Speed Yellow straight from the bottle. I used a Gaahleri Mobius .3 airbrush for the body painting.

Once dried, the body was wet sanded using 4,000, 6,000 and 8,000 grit finishing cloths followed by a couple of coats of Splash 2k clear. A few minutes after the last coat of clear, I airbrushed a light wet coat of 100% Mr. Color Leveling Thinner. Depending on how the clear went on, you can sometimes watch as the leveling thinner smooths out the finish. When the clear was dry it was wet sanded with the same three grits and then polished with Novus #2 using a soft cotton cloth.

I then very carefully used Tamiya Black Panel Line to accentuate the panel lines. Touching a panel line with a small amount of black paint on it and let capillary action flow the paint along. Anywhere it was too much, I worked it down with a cotton swap with a bit of Mona Lisa paint thinner. This is great thinner for enamel based paints because it has virtually no odor and doesn’t destroy anything in my experience. You can find it online or in art supply stores.

Windows came with great masks for painting black borders on them. Again I used Mr. Surfacer 1500 and the H&S Infinity with a .15 needle in several light passes.

One of the most impressive of the fit-together pieces were the multi clear and red taillights. If I can, I make a license plate that lets me remember when the kit was completed. NOV 1124.

Decals

There were a few decals for the interior. For the exterior, there were metal stick on Toyota emblems and side view mirror inserts.

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Overall, the car came out great looking and fit together perfectly. The stance is perfect with the tires as well. I would recommend it to anyone looking to build this car. It is on my shelf!

Cheers!!

Brad

For more on this review visit ModelPaintSolutions.com.

https://modelpaintsol.com/builds/tamiya-24-toyota-gr-supra

Text and images copyright ©2025 by Brad Huskinson.

Text & Images Copyright © 2025 by Brad Huskinson
Page Created 24 April, 2025
Last updated 24 April, 2025

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