After years of waiting, turns out Shirokai informed me he only had six Camaro 5th Gen kits ordered which was not enough for him to go to production for fulfillment. He claims he will at least refund total payment. Hopefully that’s actually the case of what happens.
The last correspondence I had after over a month of requesting an update was yesterday (12/27/2025) when he messaged me saying:
“Hi mate! We can’t provide 5gen Camaros yet, as there is still not enough orders in it.. Just to make it clear, molds for 1 type of a kit costs approx $35-40K, we have 5-6 u fulfilled 5gen orders and its spread between 11-13 and 14-15 models(so each has different set of molds). All last year I was trying to get more orders for each, but no luck… So we have 2 ways now to solve it: refund you guys with several payments, or keep waiting when we can afford spending another $70-80K for them molds.. I was also trying and hoping to get funds for it different way, for example with Darkhorse kit, making it limited series and sold by higher price, to cover both Darkhorse molds with 5gen Maro molds, but as of today I have only 3 deposits recieved on that
When made 6gen molds and kits, we fulfilled 6 prepaid orders for it, and after full year still have only one guy installed it, and rarely sharing photos, so I can’t promote it as well to sell more and again cover the 5gen molds”
It’s very unfortunate since it was one of the only kits I really loved. At one point I heavily considered offering to be a business investor to help restart his company but it seems like poor business strategy and management. Customers with the oldest outstanding orders should have been first priority fulfillment, which would have generated good reviews and interest necessary to draw new customer sales, but he did not follow that model. As a patient customer I can say this experience has been frustrating to say the least and I can understand not wanting to promote his business when he hasn’t treated existing customers very good. Hard to generate more sales for a company when you have people with outstanding orders over 4 years old that haven’t been fulfilled and are upset. The homepage of Shirokai’s website says:
“YEAH, WE KNOW THE HORROR STORIES.
Waiting months.
Money gone.
Radio silence.
We’ve seen it all too.
That’s literally why SHIROKAl exists.
Because most kits out there are straight-up nightmares.”
But he is doing exactly that same thing to his own customers! I chose to do business with them because they claimed to be different, but proven to be just the same hoax like the rest. No clear timeline of when the refund will occur. I will keep you updated on if/when he follows through.
Wishing everyone happy holidays and New Years, cheers!
