Arrows A18 - New kit from Cigale43 - First Look
Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2023 9:08 am
Cigale43 is a fairly new company in the 1/43rd market. Over the past 10 years the number of 1/43rd kits being produced has drastically decreased so it is nice to see new works appear.
They started doing decals to convert Tameo kits to other versions. They have released a number of decals sets for the March 761, McLaren M23 and the March 701.
I believe the kits are produced mainly by Tameo (at the very least the metal castings). The instruction sheet states "Made in California - Italy - Japan - Netherlands", so I assume there are a few parties involved in design, artwork and decal printing.
The first three kits they released were versions of the Simtek S941, now they have just released two versions of the Arrows Yahmaha A18.
Kit CFK004 makes the 1997 Hungarian GP version in which Damon Hill came 2nd
Kit CFK005 has options for the 1997 Japan and Luxembourg GPs
On first look the qualty appears to be excellent. Casting is typical Tameo quality. The decals look beautiful with a nice full color placement drawing. The instructions look to be taken from CAD drawings and while just B&W outlined shapes for the most part they look very clear and straight forward. Most of the suspension is photo-etch which is common for cars from this timeframe. The wheels though are very finely cast BBS type. This is definitely something that would have been done with photo-etch back in the day. With the quality of castings available today they look fabulous and have the correct concave shape without having to form a flat photo-etch piece into the correct shape.
This should look great when built. As far as I know the only other 1/43rd kit ever made of this car was by the short lived Trajectoire brand. They made resin kits similar to Provence Moulage except they were only available with the body pre-painted. The pre-paints were always awfully thick and pre-much turned me off ever buying their kits. So it is welcome to see this car available as a modern high quality kit.
Some pics of the kit and its contents
They started doing decals to convert Tameo kits to other versions. They have released a number of decals sets for the March 761, McLaren M23 and the March 701.
I believe the kits are produced mainly by Tameo (at the very least the metal castings). The instruction sheet states "Made in California - Italy - Japan - Netherlands", so I assume there are a few parties involved in design, artwork and decal printing.
The first three kits they released were versions of the Simtek S941, now they have just released two versions of the Arrows Yahmaha A18.
Kit CFK004 makes the 1997 Hungarian GP version in which Damon Hill came 2nd
Kit CFK005 has options for the 1997 Japan and Luxembourg GPs
On first look the qualty appears to be excellent. Casting is typical Tameo quality. The decals look beautiful with a nice full color placement drawing. The instructions look to be taken from CAD drawings and while just B&W outlined shapes for the most part they look very clear and straight forward. Most of the suspension is photo-etch which is common for cars from this timeframe. The wheels though are very finely cast BBS type. This is definitely something that would have been done with photo-etch back in the day. With the quality of castings available today they look fabulous and have the correct concave shape without having to form a flat photo-etch piece into the correct shape.
This should look great when built. As far as I know the only other 1/43rd kit ever made of this car was by the short lived Trajectoire brand. They made resin kits similar to Provence Moulage except they were only available with the body pre-painted. The pre-paints were always awfully thick and pre-much turned me off ever buying their kits. So it is welcome to see this car available as a modern high quality kit.
Some pics of the kit and its contents
