Over the years, the Tyrell Racing Team of England has become famous for incorporating innovative ideas in their Formula One racing machines. During the 1990 Grand Prix season, they introduced a very distinctive anhedral shaped front wing, which immediately became popular with other Formula One car builders. For the 1991 season the Tyrell Team improve and continued to use this highly effective design on their type 020 racer.
This wing, when combined with the raised front nose cone, allows more air to flow under the chassis, producing a stronger downforce. The sleek and low body shell was aerodynamically sculptured to provide more performance at the track. This excellent chassis is magnificently mated to Honda’s potent, normally aspirated, 3498cc, V-10 cylinder, type RA101E powerplant, and the transmission gear casing is transversely mounted in front of the rear axle.
The front suspension system uses a double wishbone push-rod type damped by a single-shock unit, while the rear end uses a conventional push-rod damped by a single-shock unit, while the rear end uses a conventional push-rod with horizontally mounted dual shocks. This reliable suspension system is fitted with newly developed Pirelli slick racing tires on all four wheels. Piloted by skilled drivers Satoru Nakajima and Stefano Modena, the Tyrell 020 racer was a prominent contender throughout the 1991 Formula One Grand Prix season.
This scale joins the ranks, as these 1/20th race cars prove a perfect size. Each kit stresses keen interior detailing and precise engine reproduction. The kits were intended for beginner, intermediate and advanced modelers, as there is something for all of them in the assembly and finished model.
From Tamiya’s Grand Prix Collection this is the Braun Tyrrell Honda 020. Â Very nice kit that shares its tooling with others in the F1 line like the Ford version. Tamiya also has this kit available in 1/12 scale and IIRC, they also offer it as RC. This one is the 1/20 scale which is small compared to the other 2 but detailed nonetheless. There is room in the engine bay for more wires and super detailing.
The Tamiya Honda Tyrrell 020 in 1/20 scale is currently out-of-production but should any plastic model kit builder like to add it to his/her collection, there’s plenty of copies available either on Amazon or eBay. -Always the sellers rating-. The kit itself is not that expensive considering the current Tamiya prices. Assembling this kit wasn’t that hard. The parts count is very low. The instructions are very straightforward. Comes with four vinyl tires attached to the hubs via metal screws as in the real car and a tool to do so is provided. Â I did use a piece of wet/dry #220 followed by #320 sandpaper to get rid of the bad looking mold line on the slick tires. Besides eliminating the mold line, this give the tires a more realistic look and texture.
There is a body to lower plate gap visible on the pictures. That’s because I decided to display this model in a LED lighted shadow box with the rear section of the body removed, so the nicely detailed engine be visible.
This Honda Tyrell 020 is the first Grand Prix addition of the many more to come to my scale automobile models collection. I would recommend this model kit to at least intermediate model builders. My only peeve with it is the usual Tamiya quality of the decal sheet including the dry transfers for the tires. Considering the base color is dark, the white sides of the markings aren’t solid white enough for a more realistic and convincing finish. It will look OK but if you want the best looking model on the next show, definitely will recommend the Studio 27 decals for this kit instead.
Sample courtesy of my thin wallet.
