Hasegawa has long been the oddball of Japanese model kits. They make random kits that you never thought about until you looked for something a little different. Very much kits for Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) fans. On the top they looked good but underneath they always lacked details.
Launched in 1994, the Beetle kit here is now no longer available but can still be picked up on eBay. Hasegawa however does still make it in a different guise.
What you can’t fault for your money is the number of sprues/parts you get. 16 in total consisting of body and chassis, glass, chrome-plated parts, metal etched parts and a fluffy carpet set.
No parts of this Beetle opened so details were always going to be few and the construction of the chassis was by far the simplest of most Beetle kits out there bar the Imai 1303 Beetle. There was only illustration graphics of a Beetle on the box and instructions, so what you were building was unknown. Not that you’d need to worry. The Japanese are masters at plastic moulding. The parts, as few as they were, went together well.
What this Hasegawa kit is about is the body. Apart from the promise of a luxurious interior with the supplied carpet set, the details are simple with door card mouldings and a choice of left or right-hand drive dashboards. The inside was almost as spartan as the actual car it was based on.
Body construction was simple. Even the chrome horn grills on the wings were moulded into it. The one part that was taxing and consuming was the indicators. Tiny chrome wing-mounted bezels with separate lenses that were even tinier. To be honest, I blinked and lost one. There are that small!
And then there was the issue I had with the rear bulkhead requiring cutting down to fit the body. For something so simple I suppose I should have been happy for something requiring a little bit of work and time to fit.
And that pretty much is the Hasegawa Beetle kit. Built it in a weekend. Used 7 coloured paints in total. It was so simple. I’d build another only because I painted mine in the wrong colour. It’s the same model as my own car. That’s the only reason why I’d build another. It lacks details, opening parts and it is expensive. It’s not a kit I can recommend.
£35 plus on eBay.