Scale Model Kit of the Week: 1/24 scale Toyota Estima (Previa) Police Van

Since the previous Scale Model Kit of the Week was a "Fuzz Duster" Plymouth Volaré, we're going to represent The Fuzz this week with a Fujimi 1/24-scale Toyota Previa (known as the Estima in its homeland) in full Japanese law-enforcement trim.

I'm currently here in Japan to learn how Toyota builds the machine at the very pinnacle of the company's product line: the mighty Century, which is made to the specifications of the Japanese Imperial Family (check in later for that story). Naturally, that meant that I needed to hit the hobby shops in Tokyo's Shinjuku neighborhood, to get a Century scale model kit. Which I did, but then I spotted a kit that I never imagined existed: a police version of the Toyota Estima minivan in 1/24 scale.

We in North America knew this van as the Previa, and it was a mid-engined, supercharged, all-wheel-drive masterpiece of engineering. Most Previas held together for better than 300,000 miles, before heading to junkyards to become supercharger donors, and I must have a scale model of one. Purchased!

Japanese model builders insist on high-quality kits, and Fujimi makes some good stuff. I hope it survives the trip back home in my checked luggage.

The first-gen Estima might not have been the ideal hot-pursuit vehicle (unless the quarry was fleeing in something like a Suzuki Wagon R), but the law had the ability to fit quite a few captured perps inside, and the sliding door made the cuff-and-stuff process much simpler than it would have been in, say, a Crown sedan.

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