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Herausgeber: Crowood
Kategorie: Lebensstil
Sprache: Englisch

Beschreibung

The best-known and most important manufacturer of plastic model kits in the UK, Airfix has been at the forefront of the industry since 1955 when the first Airfix aircraft kit appeared in UK branches of Woolworth's. The kits were made to a constant scale and covered a wide variety of subjects, from aircraft to birds and from tanks to dinosaurs. In 1981 the famous London-based company closed down and only the kits survived intact. For the next twenty-five years Airfix was run by Palitoy and later Humbrol, but suffered from a lack of investment. In 2006, Hornby Hobbies Ltd, the train and Scalextric manufacturer, bought the ailing company and transformed it. Money and resources were ploughed into the range, and today Airfix releases around twenty new kits per year, designed to an incredibly high standard. The old kits of the 1950s and 1960s are gradually being replaced by new state-of-the-art tooling, all bearing that most prestigious name - Airfix. Published to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of the first Airfix aircraft kit, Sixty Years of Airfix Models, tells the full story, year by year, of the company and its products. Illustrated throughout with colour photographs.of kits, box art and completed models.

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Seitenzahl: 526

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

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Leseprobe

SIXTY YEARS OF AIRFIX MODELS

JEREMY BROOK

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2015 by

The Crowood Press Ltd

Ramsbury, Marlborough

Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84797 976 6

Note: Years given for models and kits in the captions refer to the year in which the item depicted was purchased, which in some cases is not the year of its original release.

Contents

Foreword

Glossary

Introduction

1 A Brief History of Airfix

2 The Golden Age, 1952–1981

3 The General Mills/Palitoy Years, 1981–1986

4 The Humbrol Years, 1986–2006

5 Airfix as Part of Hornby, 2006–2015

6 Packaging

7 Logos

8 Airfix Artists

9Airfix Magazine

10Airfix Books

Index

Foreword

Airfix is one of those brands that gets under your skin.

It’s hard to know why this is. Let’s face it, it’s only a box full of plastic parts, that by some miracle ends up being the perfect replica of the real thing! And when I say perfect, I mean perfect at any age. At eight years old, that Spitfire with the droopy wings and glue-damaged canopy was the perfect model of one of the world’s greatest ever fighters, and even after taking over the dining table for what seemed like weeks, the whole family agreed too. That is what I believe is the magic of Airfix. It’s the fact that it grows up with you, with some creating models that are even better than the real thing – well certainly in looks!

If you started Airfix modelling at a young age I think you’ll know exactly what I mean, if not it’s never too late to start, and Jeremy, who I’ve known for many years, takes you on an informative and enthusiastic tour in the following pages.

Darrell Burge

Glossary

Before the advent of multi-lingual and step-by-step diagrammatic instructions, the early Airfix instruction sheets had an ‘exploded’ diagram with a written description of each stage. As a child, I learnt many exotic words like ‘nacelle’, ‘mizzen mast’ and ‘pitot tube’, to name but a few, all from perusing the kit’s assembly instructions. The young modeller of today relies on symbols and arrows to help him assemble the kit. Since we are told that ‘a picture paints a thousand words’, it means a kit can be made as easily by a child from Sweden as one from Swindon. I cannot help feeling, however, that modern youngsters are losing out on a chance to learn more about the subject they are modelling. Such ‘technical’ words are outside the scope of this book.

Several unusual words are used in connection with plastic construction kits in this book, and below are simple descriptions of some of the more frequently used ones.

After-market or ‘cottage’ companies: When a major kit company such as Airfix produces a new kit, there are several small companies out there which produce short-run components for advanced modellers to use to detail their kits or produce new variants. The parts are usually made out of resin or photo-etched metal. They tend to be available for a limited time. Some cottage companies produce whole kits in limited runs or detailed decal sheets for many kits.

Decals: The standard term for the markings on a sheet that are transferred to the painted model. They can be ‘water-slide’ or ‘peel-off’. Older modellers grew up calling them ‘transfers’.

Flash: Flash is the very thin plastic that sometimes surrounds a moulded part. It is usually seen on older kits where the mould is beginning to wear and the molten plastic is forced out between the two faces when they are closed together. It is very easily removed but can be difficult on very fine pieces.

K-resin: A harder compound polythene that Airfix has been using on its latest issue of the 1:32 figure sets. The earlier sets were produced in polythene, which whilst meaning the soldiers did not break, were very difficult for paint or glue to adhere to. K-resin is harder and seems to accept paint better, although bayonets are more likely to break off.

Polybagged: Originally many kit companies would swap moulds or lend moulds to another company to mould the kits. However, there is always scope for loss or damage in transit. Nowadays most companies run off a batch of kits, which are then put into polythene bags and sent to another company for them to add decals, boxes and so on. This is known as ‘polybagging’. Hornby used several ‘polybag’ kits when it first took over Airfix to increase the range, but is now using primarily its own moulds.

Polyprop: This refers to the ready-assembled tanks and vehicles that Airfix introduced in its range, aimed more at the younger modeller. They are made of a more flexible polythene compound rather than the harder polystyrene used for standard kits.

Polystyrene: Pre-war and early toys and kits, such as the Ferguson Tractor, were usually made out of acetate, which was unstable and prone to warping. Polystyrene is a hard plastic, which when heated flows easily into cavities in a mould and shows the tiniest of details. Rejected runners can be ground down and used again. It does not seem to scour the mould, so the moulds can last for fifty or more years. Nowadays many early acetate toys have warped quite badly, whereas kits such as the original Golden Hind seem as good as new.

Runner: This is the correct name for the ‘tree’ or framework on to which all the parts are moulded. The early kits had the parts moulded either side of a straight runner, but later kits had a rectangular runner with the parts moulded inside. This afforded much more protection for the parts, and meant the runners fitted into the boxes better. They are often incorrectly referred to as ‘sprues’, and Hornby actually labels its runners as ‘Sprue A’, for example.

Sprue: The sprue is the point or ‘gate’ where the plastic flows from the runner into the individual parts. So when a modeller refers to ‘sprue stretching’ to produce thin plastic for rigging wires, for example, it should be ‘runner stretching’, but it doesn’t sound as good!

Transfers: This was the old name, certainly in the UK, for the water-slide transfers that were applied to models. The markings were dipped in warm water, and after a few moments, slid off or ‘transferred’ to the kit. In the US they were known as decals. Nowadays ‘decal’ is the word applied to kits, and even full-size aircraft and vehicles use decals.

Vac-form: Most of us are familiar with the plastic trays that are included in food and other containers to keep parts separate. They are made of a thin plastic, which is drawn up into a mould to achieve the shape. It is known as vacuum-forming, as a vacuum is created to pull the plastic into the mould. The plastic sails on the large sailing ships are ‘vac-formed’ and cut out carefully by the modeller. Many of the military sets, such as the D-Day Assault Sets, contain a vac-form base on which to pose the models. They are, however, very thin and do not react well to being leant on!

Introduction

Sixty years ago, in 1955, as Britain was at last emerging from the post-war austerity that had prevailed since 1945, shoppers in branches of F. W. Woolworth & Co were pleased to note the appearance of a plastic construction kit of the most famous fighter of World War II, the Spitfire. It was produced by a small South London company that was perhaps better known for its range of plastic toys and, until recently, combs. The company was Airfix Products, and since the early 1950s they had been producing a small range of construction kits that were sold exclusively through Woolworths.

The early kits were mainly a selection of small sailing ships or vintage cars, but since interest in British war films and the war itself was very high, and the film of the famous Dambuster raids was packing cinemas, the decision by Airfix to manufacture its first aircraft kit, a Spitfire, was inspired. The aircraft range grew more quickly than any other, and soon made Airfix a house-hold name. Within a few years ‘Airfix’ was to become the generic name for all construction kits, and its earlier products, like the combs, had almost been forgotten. It would go on to produce more toys, games, racing sets, trains, building, art and craft sets, but it will always be remembered for its kits. The kits were the only part of Airfix to survive intact the disastrous events of January 1981.

By the late 1970s, and bolstered by its own magazine, Airfix Magazine, which was the highest-selling modelling magazine at that time, it had produced the largest and most diverse range of construction kits in the world. Keen modellers could buy kits of dinosaurs, birds or steam engines as well as ships, figures and, of course, aircraft. In fact many people believed that the name ‘Airfix’ was taken from its range of aircraft construction kits, but that was just a happy coincidence!

The largest range of kits was, and still is, the range of aircraft kits, which cover scales from 1:144 through 1:72 and 1:48 to the giant 1:24 ‘Superkits’ that Airfix pioneered. One of the early selling points of the Airfix range was its adherence to a ‘constant scale’ whereby every kit in a particular range was moulded to the same scale, so that a schoolboy’s Messerschmitt could attack a Lancaster without looking out of place. Kits were also sold in numbered series, from one to twenty, depending upon complexity and size. So, for example, a Sopwith Camel would appear in Series 1, whilst a B-29 Super-fortress was in Series 7, making it an ideal Christmas present for young modellers. Airfix strove to release a large aircraft kit just before Christmas, no doubt with the ‘present’ market in its sights.

Airfix also employed some of the finest artists to illustrate the box tops, believing that it was the picture that sold the kit. Who can forget those stirring Roy Cross paintings, like the Lancaster struggling to land with an engine on fire, or Brian Knight’s Waterloo Highlanders in their bright red uniforms firing at the advancing French infantry? That was what sold the model to the countless numbers of schoolboys, and their fathers, who would regularly visit their local newsagents or nearby branch of ‘Woolies’ to see if the latest kit was out. It was the dream that sold the reality, and to this day the box tops tend to be what many older modellers remember with most affection. Many of the kits have not aged well over fifty or more years, but those stirring paintings still entice the would-be buyer to part with his money, and are in fact works of art in their own right.

Sixty years after the release of the first Spitfire, Airfix is once again releasing new kits at a rate not seen since the 1960s and 1970s. Many of those tired old kits from fifty or more years ago are now being replaced by new tools with an unprecedented level of detail. The history of Airfix has been well covered in the books written by Arthur Ward and in the back issues of Constant Scale, so I shall concentrate on the kits and models Airfix has released since the little Golden Hind over sixty years ago.

Kits were designed to be made; older modellers took their time and often never got round to starting some of the kits in their ‘stashes’, which would prove fortuitous to visitors of eBay today – but young modellers were very impatient. Typically, the latest kit was bought with your pocket money in the morning and assembled by early afternoon, and thanks to the introduction of ‘one-hour’ enamel paints they could be painted up before tea-time. Then you borrowed your mum’s nail scissors, put some water in a saucer and applied the waterslide ‘transfers’ to your latest project. Once dry, or nearly dry, the fun would begin: battles were fought and war stories re-enacted, and when you tired of it (in those pre-Health and Safety days) you could buy some penny ‘bangers’ or load your air rifle and blow your model to bits. Most satisfying!

Early aircraft kits from the 1950s.

Front and back cover of the first edition of the Airfix Catalogue, 1962.

Late 1950s Series 2 headers.

Diesel Crane kit from 1961.

I started making Airfix kits when I was nine or ten, and still have most of the models I made. As you will see from the pictures herein, many bear the dust and dirt marks of thirty-five years or more in storage, and reflect my own modest modelling skills. I could never reach the standard of the super modellers one sees in magazines and at model shows, but I enjoyed making them and doing my best, and that is what it is all about. I learned a lot about aircraft, tanks and ships from making those models, and they encouraged me to find out more.

In those early days we spent hours with one of our dad’s old razor blades clutched between our fingers, cleaning up the plastic on our kits and stretching plastic ‘sprue’ over a candle, inhaling the intoxicating aroma of the plastic glue! I still have the scars from my early encounters with them.

We may have shot our models to pieces or blown them up in the back garden shortly after we’d made them, but we could always lie in bed with the latest Airfix kit catalogue and drool over all those wonderful paintings of the kits we had just destroyed. We could also dream that one day we might be able to complete a kit so that it looked like the ones on the pages. This is the story of those dreams.

Jeremy Brook

CHAPTER ONE

A Brief History of Airfix

In 1938, a Hungarian Jew by the name of Miklos Kovesh arrived in Britain, where-upon he changed his name to Nicolas Kove. He had led an interesting life, having been sent to Siberia in World War I before, apparently, walking back home! Between the wars he moved with his family to Spain, where he set up a company employing cellulose-based plastics and patented a process for stiffening collars called ‘Interfix’. With the threat of civil war in Spain looming, he moved to Italy; however, he found that Mussolini’s strong connections to Hitler made Italy an unsafe base for a Jewish-run company. So he took his family and set off for a safer home.

The story of Airfix starts with his arrival in England. Upon arriving he set up a new company, probably in 1939, in the Edgware Road in London. He called his new company ‘Airfix’, which had nothing to do with aircraft models; the famous kits would not appear for another fourteen or so years. He chose the name ‘Airfix’ because he strongly believed that a successful company should appear at the front of a trade directory, and he also had an interest in trademarks ending in ‘ix’, which he had used to name his collar-stiffening process. Since one of his earliest products was to be air-filled mattresses, he felt ‘Airfix’ was appropriate since his product was ‘fixed with air’. He has also been credited with inventing the Li-Lo air bed.

The war intervened, and despite his being a Jewish businessman, effectively a refugee, he is believed to have been interned on the Isle of Man for a short while. After the war, like many others, he found that materials were in very short supply and so he had to resort to finding materials wherever he could, even grinding down old fountain pens to produce plastic for his injection-moulding machines. He had been manufacturing utility lighters, but was always on the lookout for new markets and ways to keep his hungry machines busy. By this time the company logo read ‘Airfix Products in Plastic’, to reflect his growing dependence on plastic toys and articles.

Around 1947 he happened upon a new market. Windsor’s had just produced the first plastic injection-moulding machine in the UK and were looking for someone to operate it. Islyn Thomas of Newark, USA, who ran Hoffman Tools and would supply Kove with his first mould for combs, was to introduce him to Windsor’s. This fusion of needs resulted in Airfix operating the first injection-moulding machine in the country.

Four views of the Airfix toolroom in the 1940s.

At that time combs were made of acetate and the teeth were cut using saws. Utilizing the moulds supplied by Hoffman Tools, Kove could provide combs made out of plastic, which were much stronger and cheaper than the old acetate ones. Within a short while, Airfix was the largest manufacturer of combs in the UK, and controlled the market. So keen was Woolworths, its principal customer, to get their combs that they frequently picked them up from Airfix rather than waiting to have them delivered! By the early 1950s, however, Airfix was facing increasing competition from other combmaking manufacturers, and so in 1951 or 1952, Airfix withdrew from the combmaking business.

The early days at Airfix were always somewhat chaotic, and it was very much a ‘hand-to-mouth’ existence. The man who was employed as the manager at Airfix before 1950 was John Dolan. He gave a very interesting and illuminating interview to the Plastic Historical Society in the late 1990s, shortly before his death. In it he describes many of the goings-on at Airfix whilst Nicolas Kove was running it. He tells of Kove’s attempts to track down and acquire raw materials for production, and of having to cut a hole in the first floor of the factory so that the injection-moulding machine could be lowered in!

Nicholas and Clothilde Kove.

Airfix model tractor from 1949. JOHN DOLAN

Kove reputedly had a fiery temper, but he could also be very generous. His health was not too good, and much of the day-to-day running of the company was put into John Dolan’s hands, and from 1950 into Ralph Ehrmann’s. Nicolas Kove died in 1958, and in that year Airfix became a limited company with Ralph Ehrmann at its head.

Dolan claims to have invented the kitbag and header for the Ferguson Tractor and later kits, although he left Airfix in 1949, around the time that the tractor was first being produced. Whilst there is cause to doubt the veracity of some of his reminiscences, he does paint an interesting picture of a typical post-war small company, struggling to survive.

As the pioneer in injection moulding in the UK, Airfix had been making a range of toys and games that were becoming increasingly popular. This expertise is probably the reason that Airfix was approached by Harry Ferguson in the late 1940s to produce a promotional model of his new TE20 tractor, which was entering production in Coventry. He wanted a made-up model that his sales force could show and give to prospective customers. The finished tractor was to 1:20 scale, and according to Ralph Ehrmann, who joined Airfix in 1950, the mould was a lovely one, which produced very detailed and accurate miniatures.

The problem was that the models had to be assembled by the Airfix workforce, which was both time-consuming and costly. Models were often returned because small parts had broken and needed replacing, and this was becoming an expensive headache for Airfix. By this time Airfix had gained Ferguson’s approval to sell the tractor to the general public, so it was decided to sell the model as a kit of parts in a box, to be assembled by the purchaser. This appears to have happened in around 1952 or 1953. Later, probably in around 1955, it would be sold in the standard Airfix kit package of a polythene bag with a header attached.

It is sometimes thought of as the first Airfix kit, although it was not designed as a kit but as a model assembled from parts. The credit for being the first true Airfix kit goes to the little replica of the Golden Hind. However, the kit that will always be associated with Airfix, more than any other, is the Supermarine Spitfire. A somewhat crude and inaccurate model was released in 1955, coded BT-K, but it led the way to hundreds of other kits of aircraft, and indeed today the main output of Airfix is still aircraft. Today, Airfix has released around thirty different models of the Spitfire in three scales, more than any other manufacturer, and is set to produce more Spitfires in the years ahead with an accuracy and detailed finish that was undreamt-of in 1955.

My own involvement with Airfix dates back to the late 1950s. I remember going into the little newsagent next to my primary school, which was selling a boxed kit of the Spitfire, probably the Aurora 1:48 kit. I never managed to buy it, but I did later make an Airfix Spitfire, which was almost certainly BT-K. Since I did not have any proper paint, I used the oil paint from a ‘Painting by Numbers’ set. It took a week to dry, but it did get rid of all the unsightly rivets and trench-deep panel lines! Then I remember my father coming back from a conference and bringing my elder brother and me two Airfix kits: one of us got the Beaufighter and the other the Bristol Fighter. In those days fitting the top wing on to a biplane was a nightmare, as all the struts were separate and you had to get them all lined up and get the wing on before they moved and the glue dried. More often than not the whole thing would not sit right, or it moved out of place and you had to start again. When it did finally sit right it was remarkably strong, but it helped develop in me a liking for monoplanes!

It was in August 1963 that I decided to buy Airfix Magazine each month, and I also bought my first catalogue to add to the various leaflets I had picked up and fortunately not discarded. I was in the habit of carefully opening any kit and always saving the box, header and instructions. Soon I had several old kit boxes filled with bits and pieces from earlier kits. I also cut out any news items in the daily papers about Airfix, and squirrelled them away for future reference. This collecting habit would stand me in good stead when I came to run the Airfix Collectors’ Club, for I had quite an archive of all things relating to Airfix, most of it collected at the time.

In the 1950s and 1960s the main source of supply for Airfix kits was the F. W. Woolworth chain of stores. In those days every town had a ‘Woolies’ and many suburbs of cities had small branches. One could always see the Airfix kits because high above the maroon-coloured counters were huge sheets of white pegboard, to which were affixed numerous made-up Airfix kits, so one could automatically make a bee-line for the Airfix counter.

Originally, Airfix kits were only sold in Woolworth’s, which ensured that they had an excellent distribution system. The growing range of Airfix kits was extremely popular, and in the mid-1950s Woolworth’s tried to capitalize on this success by selling kits from other small kit companies. This rather upset Airfix, which then arranged to sell its kits through other retailers. None of the other ranges of kits were as successful for Woolworth’s as the Airfix range, and their exclusivity was lost. However, Woolworth’s did retain its priority regarding new releases.

In those days Woolworth’s had an agreement with Airfix whereby they received the first run of any new kit, about three or four weeks before the other shops got theirs. Effectively, the Woolworth’s order paid the development cost of the early Airfix kits. By the late 1970s, Woolworth’s was no longer the Mecca for Airfix kits and one could buy them in most newsagents, department stores, ironmongers and many other shops. Many young boys would take their Saturday ‘pocket money’ into their village shop, or go to their nearest town, and buy the latest Airfix aeroplane or tank, which they would make as soon as they got home and play with in the afternoon. Ah, happy days!

In the next four chapters I shall look at the way the range developed over the four distinct periods in the life of Airfix, and how it lived up to its claim to have ‘the largest range of plastic kits in the world’!

For each year I shall list the kits or models announced in that year. Some may have taken a couple of years to appear, and some arrived in the shops unannounced, but generally most made it into the shops in the year of their announcement. I shall give a very brief history of each kit, and a little more space to important or innovative kits.

Airfix toys of the late 1940s.

‘Zoobrix’, an Airfix toy of the 1940s. JOHN DOLAN

Each model will have the Airfix number first applied to it. Initially the kits used pattern numbers taken from those used by all the other Airfix products in the 1950s, but in around 1959 the kits started to use catalogue numbers, which were more specific to series and type of kit and helped the purchaser to know where to find it in the catalogues or leaflets. These replaced the original pattern numbers. In the early 1970s, with computerization appearing, the kit range had ‘computerized’ catalogue numbers applied by which they are still identified today. In the Palitoy era most kits issued had a prefix ‘9’ added to their catalogue number, while Hornby prefixes its releases with an ‘A’.

Some kits, like the venerable Gloster Gladiator from 1956 and the Tiger Moth from 1957, have been in almost continuous production for nearly sixty years, and have used the same excellent Roy Cross paintings to sell them for most of that time. Others, like the Showjumper and Boy Scout, were only available for a short period and then withdrawn. Whether they will ever return is doubtful, but the barely-used moulds still exist. Perversely, these are among the most sought-after kits by collectors, who wouldn’t give a week’s pocket money in the early days to buy them, but will now contemplate spending a week’s wages to acquire one!

The four periods referred to earlier begin with the first kit in the early 1950s up to the closure of the parent company, Airfix Industries, in January 1981. This is often considered to be the ‘Golden Age’ of Airfix kits. Then from 1981 until 1986, the Airfix construction kit division was owned by the American General Mills Company, operated through its Palitoy subsidiary in Leicester. Production of Airfix kits was moved to General Mills’ factories in France.

In 1986, General Mills withdrew from toy-making in Europe and sold Airfix to Humbrol, which was based in Kingston-upon-Hull. Humbrol had previously bought the French kit company Heller, and production of Airfix kits was moved to Heller’s factory at Trun in France.

Finally in mid-2006, Heller got into difficulties and Humbrol found it could not gain access to its moulds or completed kits. Consequently the banks withdrew their support for Humbrol and so the administrator was called in for the second time. Fortunately, the famous British brand of Hornby came to the rescue and bought Humbrol along with Airfix, and returned the brands to Britain. Today, both brands are based at Hornby’s headquarters in Margate, Kent, and the famous and valuable Airfix mould tools are therefore once again back in Britain.

The majority of Humbrol paints are now being made in Britain, but the Airfix kits are presently being made in China and India. The new Airfix ‘Quick Build’ kits, though, are being made in this country. The good news for modellers is that after twenty-five years or so of a lack of investment in the range, Hornby is now investing large sums in new tools, and it seems Airfix is entering a second ‘Golden Age’.

If the last kit you made over thirty years ago was the Gloster Gladiator, then you can still get it today, but you now have the option of buying the new Gladiator, which is an infinitely superior kit and every bit as good as the much more expensive Japanese kits such as Tamiya. The new Tiger Moth kit is superb.

The big news in the plastic modelling world in 2014 was the release of an exquisitely detailed 1:24 model of the Hawker Typhoon. In 2006 it was felt that Airfix was finally going to disappear, but instead it is now back at the very top and is doing more than any other company to get children back into the old ways of building and creating something with their hands. Also in 2014, Airfix released a small model of the Mary Rose similar in size to the first Golden Hind kit.

So things seemed to have turned full circle, with Airfix once again leading the world in new models and introducing innovative details to the kits. As we have come to the end of the first six decades of Airfix kit production, we can look forward with excitement to what the next sixty years will hold.

CHAPTER TWO

The Golden Age, 1952–1981

In the early 1950s, Airfix was selling huge numbers of its ready-assembled ice cream tricycles in the UK branches of Woolworth’s, as well as other toys it was producing. Comb production, a market in which Airfix had been the main player for several years, was winding down, and Airfix was looking for new products to replace the combs. In late 1951 or early 1952, Ralph Ehrmann, who had joined Airfix in March 1950, went on a trade visit to the United States where he saw a range of sailing ship kits being produced by an American company, Gowland and Gowland.

Later in 1952, Jim Russon, chief buyer for the UK Woolworth’s stores, approached Airfix because it was one of the largest suppliers of toys to their stores. He suggested Airfix might like to manufacture UK-produced versions of a series of ‘ships-in-a-bottle’ kits being produced in the United States by Gowland and Gowland, the very ones Ralph had seen earlier. The first one suggested was the Golden Hind, which it was proposed would be sold exclusively in the UK Woolworth’s branches.

Despite the mould already existing, Airfix concluded that it could not be produced cheaply enough, so they looked at the idea of producing just the ship without the bottle. It still looked too expensive. Since Airfix was probably the most experienced plastic injection-moulding company in Britain at the time, Ralph Ehrmann and John Gray considered the feasibility of Airfix making their own mould of the Golden Hind, without a bottle, to sell instead of someone else’s. Once the mould was paid for there would be no licence fees to eat into the profitability of the kit, and they could produce as many as they liked, whenever they liked. At this point I do not think they were contemplating designing a huge range of kits.

Airfix first suggested a retail price of 5s (25p), with the model being sold in a box. This was too high for Woolworth’s, so Airfix looked at ways to reduce the cost. At that time new clear polythene bags were beginning to appear, and so it was proposed to put the kit parts into a plastic bag with a simple folded colour header stapled to the bag. The assembly instructions, history and so on, would be printed on the header. Woolworth’s accepted the idea and gave Airfix an order for 30,000 Golden Hind kits to retail at 2s (10p) each – and so the first of the famous ‘two-bob’ kits was born.

The Golden Hind first appeared in late 1952, or more likely early 1953, though the date of release cannot at present be confirmed, and it was so popular that the moulding machines were in continuous production and sales easily exceeded the original 30,000! It seems that almost by accident Airfix had stumbled on the formula that would result in them becoming one of the most famous names in the toy-making world, and more than sixty years later it would still be moulding new kits.

Ralph Ehrmann and John Gray concluded that they had a winner, so decided to mould more ship kits. Again they looked to the States to see what other ships were being sold in bottles, and decided to mould the Santa Maria as number two.

Ralph told me that when it came to number three, he seems to remember that the Americans were producing a kit of the USS Chesapeake, which had had some success against Royal Navy vessels during the war of 1812, and so he thought,‘Why not produce a kit of HMS Shannon, which had eventually captured the Chesapeake’? This would explain why the Shannon was produced before the likes of the Victory, Cutty Sark, Revenge and so on. I have often thought that the Shannon was the odd one out because it was not very well known: had it not been for the fact that every year it appeared in the Airfix catalogue and I was reminded that the Shannon had captured the Chesapeake, I would probably never have heard of the Shannon. It also added a British-inspired element to the new range of ships.

The huge success of the Golden Hind, which was not, I am sure, originally seen as the first of a huge range of kits, meant that the next few kits would take a year or so to plan and produce, which is why there were no other new kits in 1953. By 1954, when the two new ship kits were entering the market place, numbers four to twelve were already being planned and tooled.

The original Golden Hind kit (left) with the later full-hull version (right).

Nicholas Kove was apparently reluctant to move away from ships, as this was proving to be a very successful range, but Ehrmann and Gray, who had been promoted to buyer at Airfix in 1949 and later general manager, were already looking at other manufacturers’ ranges for inspiration. Gowland and Gowland also produced a range of 1:32 vintage cars, two of which were kits of a 1911 Rolls-Royce and a 1930 Bentley. These were obvious choices for the British market. Clearly Airfix got their inspiration from the other kits, but the moulds were new and tooled by Airfix. John Gray told Arthur Ward that he remembered chasing a Bentley owner to his home, where he persuaded him to let Airfix measure his car. The Bentley owner did not want his paintwork scratched, so the Airfix designer had to cut off the metal end to his measuring tape and then add half an inch to all his measurements!

1:32 was a popular scale in the United States, and 1:32 figures roughly equated to the scale of 54mm, which was used for many toy soldiers.

Both Ehrmann and Gray had been in the RAF in the war, so they felt the third range should be aircraft. The obvious choice for the first aircraft kit would be the Spitfire, arguably the most iconic aircraft of World War II and, rightly or wrongly, seen as the one that had saved Britain; so there was really no better choice to launch the aircraft range.

Once again Airfix looked to other manufacturers and found that an American kit company, Aurora, had just released a 1:48 Spitfire of indeterminate mark. Almost from the beginning Airfix researched, designed and moulded each kit, and still does, but it is fair to say that for the first few kits, Airfix looked to see how their competitors had designed a kit they were proposing to mould before actually starting work. There are still some kit companies in the Far East that will take an existing kit from another company to use as the basis for a new kit they want to mould.

Since aircraft were seen as a bit of a gamble and Nicholas Kove had insisted that the mould be underwritten by Messers Ehrmann and Gray, it appears that the decision was taken to use the Aurora model as a ‘pattern’ for the new kit. The 1:48 kit could be pantographed down to 1:72 scale, but apart from the size difference the two kits were virtually identical, seeming to confirm that the Aurora kit was copied. Furthermore the Aurora markings of BT-K did not come from a Spitfire but from a different aircraft altogether, and Airfix even used those! This first Spitfire is now referred to by Airfix collectors as ‘BT-K’. The Airfix kit is clearly a direct copy of the Aurora kit, albeit scaled down to 1:72 scale, unlike the ships and cars which owed only their inspiration to the other manufacturers. Whether Aurora gave their blessing to Airfix to scale it down still cannot be stated categorically, and is probably best left alone! All subsequent kits, with a very few exceptions, would be Airfix-designed.

Three typical kits of the 1952–55 era.

The scale they chose was to be 1:72: 1in to 72in, or 1in to 6ft. This was important, because at the time many of the kit manufacturers were scaling their aircraft kits to fit into standard box sizes. Thus it was not uncommon to find kits that were to 1:69, 1:75, and so on. Of course, once the modeller began to build up a collection of aircraft, these size differences began to be noticeable and could spoil a collection of scale models. The decision by Airfix to adopt a ‘constant scale’ for each series meant that they could continue to sell their early kits well into the next century, and the rapidly growing ranges meant that other manufacturers had to fall in step or lose out. In fact the 1956 Gloster Gladiator, the second Airfix aircraft, would not leave the catalogue until 2013, to be replaced by an excellent new-tool Gladiator. Since the initial tooling costs were effectively paid for by Woolworth’s, this means that Airfix has enjoyed fifty-six years of profitable production out of that one mould! The only work on the mould, apart from necessary maintenance, has been the provision of an alternative propeller. No production figures are known to exist for the Gladiator, but they must run into seven figures.

Since large numbers of kits were never actually built, one’s chances of picking up an early Airfix kit on eBay or from a dealer are good. There are lofts all over the country where in the 1950s and 1960s, Airfix kits became the preferred choice of loft insulation. With the arrival of eBay many people have taken to going into their lofts to remove the kits to sell. So beware when a seller describes his 1950s issue of an Airfix kit as ‘rare’, as the likelihood is that the newer issues are rarer. Nowadays, annual production runs are a fraction of the size of the early days, which means that, with a few exceptions, there are likely to be more unmade kits from the 1950s lying around than from the 1990s and later.

So 1954 would see only the two ships released, but in 1955 another sailing ship, the first two vintage cars and the Spitfire were all introduced. Another kit also appeared and was to prove a bit of an oddity, being a replica of the then new cruise liner SS Southern Cross. It was moulded to the scale of 1:500, several years before Airfix settled on 1:600 (1in equals 50ft) as the ‘constant scale’ for its modern warships and liners series, initiated by HMS Cossack in 1959. It was also joined by the bagged kit version of the Ferguson tractor.

Both the Southern Cross and the Ferguson tractor were sponsored by the owners. The tractor was, as stated earlier, delivered to Ferguson’s as an assembled model, but after Airfix was allowed to sell it to the general public they sold it as a kit in a box in the early 1950s. It went into the popular polythene bag in about 1955, and was retailed at 3s 9d (roughly 19p).

In 1955, four further kits were produced to make three ranges of kits. The Southern Cross was to be a one-off, produced as a promotional kit for the Shaw Savill Line, so does not constitute the beginnings of a new range. Of these four kits the Spitfire was the most important, as it was to be aircraft that would make Airfix’s name, but it was easily the worst kit moulded so far by Airfix – in fact it was so poor that it prompted a young ex-RAF national serviceman to write into Airfix and complain. He even went so far as to say he could do better! So he was summoned to Airfix and offered the job of designer of the new kits. His name was John Edwards, and he would go on to become the chief designer of Airfix kits. His replacement for the poor Spitfire would arrive in 1960 as a Mark IX kit, and would remain in the catalogue for fifty years until replaced by a new Mark IX in 2010.

So by the end of 1955, Airfix had a range that consisted of nine kits, including the tractor and Southern Cross, which like the first Spitfire did not last too long, but only seven if these two are not counted. The Spitfire would only last for five years until replaced by John Edwards’ much superior Mark IX. The Southern Cross disappeared from the leaflets in 1959, and the moulds for both models are no longer with Airfix. All the other kits would still be in production, or capable of being produced fifty or more years later, although the Shannon has not been seen now for many years. The Cutty Sark is currently in the 2014 catalogue.

Ferguson tractor kit of 1955.

Below is a list of the early years’ releases, which includes the Ferguson Tractor kit:

1952/3

1264

Golden Hind

N/A

1954

1265

Santa Maria

N/A

1266

HMS Shannon

N/A

1955

1216

Spitfire – BT-K

1:72

1315

1911 Rolls-Royce

1:32

1344

1930 Bentley

1:32

1268

Cutty Sark

1:130

1298

SS Southern Cross

1:500

480K

Ferguson Tractor (bagged kit)

1:20

It is interesting to look at these first kits. Some, like the Spitfire, were not very good, but others such as the 1930 Bentley were surprisingly good and would be re-released as recently as 2004. The Cutty Sark is still in the 2014 range!

The first five ship kits were all released as ‘waterline’ models set on a rectangular sea base. To this could be glued two right-angled pieces of plastic which had angled holes in them so they could be ‘tacked’ to the wall for display purposes. The waterline design was clearly based on the ‘ship-in-a-bottle’ design of the original kits. However, after the later ships were designed as full hull models on little display stands, the early ones would also be redesigned to become full hull.

Interestingly, sixty years later Airfix would revisit the small sailing ship market with a delightful model of the Mary Rose to 1:400 scale.

Making a kit can be a long process, anything from eighteen months to several years, particularly as before the onset of CAD design, everything was done by hand. Firstly, research material was collected: Airfix once had a huge library of books, magazines and papers referring to its hundreds of different models. Once studied, the Airfix designer would decide upon the breakdown of parts and then complete a series of technical drawings of each component. Some, like the 1:12 Rolls-Royce, ran to more than eighty drawings. Once the kit had been drawn, the plans were passed to the pattern maker, who produced wooden or resin patterns of each part. These patterns were usually several times life-size.

Spitfire BT+K from 1955, the very first Airfix Spitfire kit.

The toolmaker would then use a pantograph to scale down the patterns to the required size, and cut the reduced pattern into a block of steel. This was the most expensive and time-consuming part of the process and explains why several kits made it to the pattern-making stage only to be stopped before the tool-making process began.

Once the tool was basically finished, the tool maker could add detail by hand. This was when the raised panel lines and rivets, so beloved of early Airfix models, were added. Inscribed detail or panel lines had to be built into the pantographing stage, and this was more difficult and expensive. The toolmaker also had to plan the layout of the ejection pins to ensure a satisfactory removal from the machines. Water-cooling holes also had to be built in.

When the mould was ready, it was test-run to check for fit, ejection and other details. Adjustments usually had to be made before it was passed as finished. In the meantime, the decals had been designed and the instruction sheets readied. The artwork was completed, and a proof of the box top or header was produced. Once everything was in place, production could begin.

The first run of a new kit was typically about 70,000 units, all of which went to Woolworth’s stores. Once Woolworth’s lost its exclusivity it still got the first run, but a second run of 50–60,000 kits was made a few weeks later, which went to model and toy shops. Such was the popularity of Airfix kits in those early days that a new kit could be run several times in its first year. Thereafter they would be run regularly to restock the shops. The initial Woolworth’s order virtually guaranteed the payback on the mould, and so on.

In the early to mid-1950s the plastic construction kit market in the US and Europe was in its infancy, and the choice of what kits to make was consequently wide. Airfix’s choice of subjects, their easy availability and ‘pocket money’ prices, must have been a godsend to aspiring modellers. This, and the knowledge that many more new kits were planned, would catapult Airfix into the front ranks of model-making companies.

1956

By 1956, Airfix was well into its programme of new kits covering the three ranges they had established the previous year. Nine new kits were scheduled for release that year; in order of their pattern numbers these were as follows:

1306

HMS Victory

N/A

1335

Gloster Gladiator Mark I

1:72

1336

1905 Rolls-Royce

1:32

1337

1910 Model ‘T’ Ford

1:32

1338

1904 Darracq

1:32?

1355

Westland S-55 Helicopter

1:72

1384

Messerschmitt Bf 109F

1:72

1385

Westland Lysander

1:72

1386

Bristol F2B Fighter

1:72

For the first few years all the kits used pattern numbers, which were also used by other toys and games made by Airfix. In 1959, around the time that the packaging changed to ‘Type 2’, the kits were allocated catalogue numbers, which indicated more clearly the series number and type of kit. For example, the DH Heron released in 1959 was issued as 381, the first Series 3 aircraft, number 81. All the 1:72 aircraft in each series started at 81. At this stage, however, all the kits were still in Series 1 at 2s each.

In 1956 the new range of Airfix construction kits was only available from Woolworth’s, so it is hard to find any mention of them in the trade press because they were not yet available to trade outlets, as were the other Airfix toys and games. It is believed they were all released in 1956, but there are no surviving records to confirm this.

It was this valuable contract with Woolworth’s that effectively made Airfix the most famous construction kit company in the world. In the 1950s and 1960s, the UK branch of F. W. Woolworth Ltd had shops in virtually every town, large and small, and in many suburbs of large towns. I remember being able to go into any Woolworth’s store in the late 1950s and 1960s, and gazing over the purple counters and seeing, high up above a counter, a large pegboard sheet: attached to these sheets, by nylon strips with a peg on each end, was a selection of made-up Airfix kits. Airfix employed workers whose task was to make and paint the latest Airfix kits so they could be fitted to these display boards. I searched for years, but was unable to find any of the nylon clips to make my own mini Woolworth’s display!

Even when Woolworth’s lost its exclusive deal with Airfix, it still received the new kits about four weeks before the other shops. This tie with Woolworth’s was to make Airfix the brand leader, certainly in the UK, and it also made ‘Airfix’ a household name, as well as the generic name for any kind of self-assembly item. Even today all such kits are usually referred to as ‘Airfix kits’, and any item that is assembled from parts is likened to an Airfix kit.

The choice of kits is very interesting and shows the way the range was to develop. The Victory was the last of the small sailing ships to feature a ‘waterline’ hull, and in fact would later be altered to a full hull. It also shows that the production of new small sailing ships was slowing down. However, along with the Cutty Sark, it still features in the 2014 catalogue – not bad for a kit that is nearly sixty years old!

The remaining nine kits featured three cars and six aircraft! Two of the cars were moulded to 1:32 scale, but the Darracq was not, I think, 1:32 and is only one of a handful of Airfix kits that were not moulded to the ‘constant scale’ of the main ranges. It was chosen, I suspect, because a 1904 Darracq had featured in the hugely successful 1953/4 film Genevieve. It was possibly moulded to a larger scale because the original was smaller than the other kits and might have looked out of place alongside them. The early vintage cars did not have driver figures, but these would be added in the 1960s. Of the other two kits, the 1910 Model ‘T’ would be replaced in the 1960s by a two-seater version from 1912.

The aircraft are really interesting because Airfix chose aircraft from all eras rather than concentrating on World War II. Thus we had three fighters and a ‘spy’ plane from World War II, the first one of several World War I aircraft, and a modern post-war machine. The latter was also the first helicopter model produced by Airfix. The initial kit was of a civilian model operated by BEA, but later it would be modified twice to represent a Royal Navy machine; extra parts would be added to the kit to suit it for its Royal Navy role. Airfix soon realized that military aircraft were more popular than civil ones, and later tended to mould the military version of a civil aircraft.

Airfix was noted for its range of excellent helicopter models over the years, and in 2012 and 2013 released superb 1:48 models of the Lynx and Merlin helicopters currently being used by the British armed forces.

Gloster Gladiator kit of 1956.AIRFIX

The Gladiator was modified shortly after release to have a different propeller, but otherwise was not altered in any way for the next fifty-six years and has been available for most of that time, despite being a very rudimentary model. In 2013 it was finally retired, but it was replaced by an all-new model featuring optional skis. The new Gladiator is a superb model and a worthy successor to the venerable 1956 kit.

The Messerschmitt Bf 109F was altered later into a ‘G’ model and, like the Spitfire, was replaced in 1965 by a new kit, a Bf 109G-6. This kit would remain in the range until replaced by Hornby in 2009. The Lysander was replaced in 1972 by a new tool, which featured a ‘secret agent’ figure climbing up the ladder attached to the side.

The Bristol Fighter was the first of a comparatively small range of World War I aircraft. As mentioned earlier, I can remember my father returning from a conference in the late 1950s and bringing my brother and me kits of the Beaufighter and Bristol Fighter as presents. I can’t remember which one I had to make, but I do know that with those early biplane kits it was very difficult to fit the top wings: you had to stick up to eight interplane struts into the bottom wing, add the two mid-wing struts, and then hope you could push all the struts into the top wing before the whole thing moved out of place and you had to start again! Later kits had better ways of fixing the wing struts, and a small jig was provided to keep things in place until the glue dried. Like the real thing, once dry it was surprisingly robust. Hornby has introduced a new method of fitting the struts in place, and even includes tiny holes for rigging wires! Hopefully the 100th anniversary of World War I will see many new early biplane kits released that should be easier to construct than their predecessors!

Starting in 1965, six of the early World War I aircraft were released as ‘Dogfight Doubles’ in Series 2. At this time the Bristol Fighter, along with several of the early World War I fighters, had extra fabric detail added to the mould, bringing it more in line with the detail of the newer aircraft such as the Sopwith Pup. It was deleted from the 2013 catalogue along with other World War I aircraft.

Some of the very early aircraft kits did not feature a separate pilot figure. The pilot or ‘blob’ was either moulded into each fuselage half, or in the case of open cockpit aircraft such as the Bristol Fighter, a separate head and shoulders was cemented to a projecting tab just below the rim. Shortly after, the cockpits on new kits were opened up and a somewhat spindly figure was moulded, which sat on the moulded tab. This would be a definite improvement, as better-quality pilot figures could be added later on.

Also that year three sets of kits were released – probably Airfix had its eye on the mail-order market, where several kits in one box were more likely to be sold than single kits. Thus the Armada gift set had five sailing ships, the vintage car rally set had five vintage cars, and the historical air fleet had five aircraft. All the kits were from those models released so far; paint and brushes were included. Surviving examples are rare.

So 1956 saw twice as many kits introduced as 1955, and the following year that number was to be doubled again. More importantly it showed the direction in which the range was to develop in the years ahead, with an emphasis on aircraft models.

1957

1957 was an important year for Airfix: not only were twenty-one new kits announced, but Airfix became a public company and was quoted on the stock market. Also a new range of kits was added, to cater to a new market. The kits were as follows:

1388

Mayflower

N/A

1397

PS Great Western

N/A

1394

1907 Lanchester Landaulette