Dear Collectors.
After careful consideration we have made the decision to suspend development of the remaining 1/18 McLaren MP4/4 and MP4/5 models due to problems that we have faced in our efforts to create a resin model with removable parts.
The goal of doing these models in resin material was to create models that could easily be modified to different race specifications and still be produced in very limited quantity, with the idea of creating something unique and very limited for collectors. This material does present several challenges however, and is prone to shrinking when exposed to different temperatures. This makes it quite difficult to deliver these items according to our needed quality for this project. Additionally, we try to make every part as close to the original scale as possible, but this also makes certain parts of this model more fragile than normal. The combination of these two things we have been battled over the last two years but we feel we have made limited progress to our own standards.
During the production and QC check for these models the pieces fit together perfectly and without issue, but the rapid temperature swings during shipping caused variable amounts of shrinkage on the model parts. This results in a non-perfect fit for the final model when it arrives to the final collector. Though this issue has not been experienced by all distributors we have been attempting to address this issue without full success over the past years and at this stage have decided it is better for us to focus our full efforts on other projects where we can have more consistent results without the risk of defects.
We do apologize that this project could not be delivered as intended, but we may consider the option of continuing these projects as 1/18 diecast models instead. If we proceed with this option, we will announce the items again and collect new orders.
Thank you for your kind understanding.
Best Regards,
TSM-Model Team
