Tamiya Chairman Shunsaku Tamiya Passes Away at 90; Helped Japanese Company Transition to Making World-Class Plastic Models

The Yomiuri Shimbun

15:06 JST, July 23, 2025

Shunsaku Tamiya, the Chairman of Tamiya, Inc., died on Friday at age 90, it has been learned.

A funeral was held for close relatives only. A farewell party will be held at a later date.

He joined Tamiya (then called Tamiya Shoji) in 1958, and became its president, the second since its founding, in 1984. He helped to make the company a world-class model manufacturer through his involvement in shifting it from making wooden models to plastic ones, as well as in the development of its Mini 4WD model cars.