Tamiya Full-View & Clear Cowl Kits — the List, and How to Build the Clear Plastic

Tamiya's Full-View series (and the older 1/20 Clear Cowl Grand Prix editions) are one of the most fascinating ideas in the catalogue: take an existing kit with beautifully engineered engine, chassis and interior detail, and mold the body in transparent styrene so all of that work stays visible after the build. No cutaway surgery, no display-stand tricks — the finished car simply shows its own mechanism through the body.

Which cars exist as Full-View / Clear Cowl kits

These are limited-run variant boxings of standard Tamiya kits — thirteen in total across the 1/24 Sports Car Series and the 1/20 Grand Prix Collection:

Tamiya has also flirted with transparency elsewhere — the 1/12 Fairlady 240ZG (12010) shipped with a transparent bonnet, and the "full display model" boxings (Ferrari FXX, F50, Enzo, Nissan GT-R) are sometimes confused with Full-View kits but have opaque bodies over full engine detail. All thirteen kits above are out of production except the 300 SL (a recent limited item), and sealed examples are getting steadily harder to find. The complete Tamiya catalogue by item number is in our master list.

What's different from the base kit — and what isn't

The molds are identical. A Full-View kit is not a retooling: the body sprue is shot from the same steel molds as the standard release, simply injected with a different resin. Parts count, fit, instructions and decals are essentially the standard kit's (the BT46 adds semi-transparent decals designed to be seen through). That means everything you know about the base kit's build sequence applies unchanged.

The plastic is not the same material. Ordinary opaque kit parts are HIPS — high-impact polystyrene, styrene blended with a few percent of butadiene rubber. That rubber phase is what makes normal kit plastic slightly ductile: it shaves cleanly, bends a little before breaking, and tolerates solvent cement well. The rubber particles also scatter light, which is exactly why HIPS is opaque — so for a transparent body Tamiya must switch to GPPS, general-purpose "crystal" polystyrene with no rubber at all.

How the clear styrene behaves differently

• Harder and stiffer. GPPS has a higher elastic modulus than HIPS. Parts feel glassy and ring when tapped.
• Brittle. With no rubber phase to absorb energy, impact strength drops several-fold. The body will not flex to pop over a chassis the way an opaque one does — it cracks instead.
• Prone to stress-crazing. Internal stress from molding plus solvents (cement, some paints) produce fine silvery micro-cracks. On an opaque body you'd never see them; on a clear one they are permanent and obvious.
• Scratches show. Every sanding mark and sprue-gate scar is visible from both sides of the part, so surface finishing standards are closer to canopy work on an aircraft kit than to normal car-body prep.

Cutting, sanding and gluing — what to watch

Removing parts from the sprue

• Cut well away from the part first with sharp single-blade nippers or a fine razor saw, then trim the remaining stub in a second pass. Flush-cutting clear styrene in one bite wedges the blade and can crack or stress-whiten the gate area.
• Never twist or snap parts off the runners — the crack will run into the part.
• Support the part right next to the gate while trimming; the long thin edges of a clear body concentrate stress.

Test-fitting and assembly stress

• Dry-fit everything. If the body needs to spring outward to clear the chassis, relieve the mating surfaces rather than forcing it — a clear body forced over a tight chassis will craze at the mounting points, sometimes days later.
• Avoid tight rubber bands or clamps while glue cures; use low-tack tape and patience instead.
• Handle with clean cotton gloves late in the build — fingerprints etch into a polished clear surface surprisingly fast, and cleaning solvents are risky (see below).

Sanding and polishing

• Gate scars and mold lines can be sanded, but you must go all the way through the grits: roughly 800 → 1000 → 1500 → 2000, then a plastic polishing compound (coarse → fine), exactly as you would polish an aircraft canopy. Stop early and the haze stays visible forever.
• Wet-sand with light pressure; dry sanding builds heat, and GPPS softens and smears at fairly low temperatures.
• A dip or brush coat of clear gloss acrylic can restore transparency after polishing — test on a hidden area or the sprue first.

Cement and adhesives

• Standard solvent cement is the main hazard. It works chemically on GPPS just as it does on HIPS, but any squeeze-out or vapour blooms into permanent white crazing on the visible surface. Use it only on joints hidden from view, applied sparingly from the inside with a fine brush.
• Cyanoacrylate (super glue) fogs clear parts. The vapour deposits a white bloom on the surrounding surface. If you must use CA near clear parts, use the low-bloom/odourless type and keep ventilation moving.
• The safe default for visible joints is a non-solvent clear-parts adhesive (PVA-type canopy glue or similar) — weaker, but invisible and removable. Two-part epoxy also works for structural points that don't show.
• Mask and paint interiors first: overspray on the inside of a clear body cannot be polished out later. Lacquer paints and strong thinners can also craze bare GPPS, so prime hidden test areas before committing.

Why they're worth hunting

Full-View kits reward exactly the modeller Tamiya designed them for: someone who enjoys the engine bay and chassis engineering as much as the paintwork. Built carefully, a CLK-GTR or F50 with its complete drivetrain visible through the body is a display piece a standard kit simply cannot replicate — and since every release is discontinued, sealed kits are appreciating steadily.

Related reading: The 10 Rarest Tamiya Car Model Kits.