Airfix revival (Yet Again)!

As long as I can get those odd ones cheap,I'll be happy.Plus if I'm going to do a squadron of 109s to use up a decal sheet,who cares if they are all tamiya? I am building for me and no one outside my family will ever see them,certainly no one with an eye for the details. Airfix is too much fun for the money to me :)

Doug said the following on 19/04/07 15:03:

We've done this all before but part of the charm of any company like Airfix is that it provides for the youngster who wants to build it in five minutes, use poster paints and get glue on the canopy, and without dad or uncle wanting to turn it into an exacting standard. He can buy his own damned kits! :-)

'Cheap and cheerful' is an old term that comes to mind.

Richard.

The most important word in your post was "Hornby". Hornby have shown, time and again over the last ten years or so, that they know *exactly* what they are doing. I think that Airfix is in good hands.

My favourite Airfix kits?

In 1/48, they would be the Spitfire 24 and Seafire 47. Pretty much the same kit, I know. I also like the Spitfire IX, but not to build. There are niggling things wrong with it, and it would be rather expensive to put those right. So much so that I find it better to use the Hasegawa MkIX and live with the slightly short fuselage. However, the Airfix IX has two sets of wings and is ideal as a source of parts to convert the Tamiya Vb into a Vc. Buying one Airfix kit for spare parts is far cheaper than buying two sets of resin wings and you will even get a rear fuselage to graft onto one of the Mk24s to make a Mk21 and a set of extended wingtips to make a MkVI or MkVII.

In 1/72, I'd like them to re-release the TSR2 so I can build a couple of "what-ifs".

In other scales, there's the "Old Bill" bus and I'd really like to get my hands on those old 54mm figures.

yes.

Yes - but as the OP said: very often they are not (or were not) cheap! Often the retail price in store was £9.99, for a big flashy box containing a crummy little 1/72 kit (sometimes with "(c) Airfix 1976" embossed on a sprue). [Having said that: they had some fabulous kits too.)

Don't get me wrong, mind: the very word "Airfix", never mind set in its famous red logo, is enough to spark something deep inside me! It's just that I always used to look for the half-price deals -- which were many and often, if you looked round enough.

Viva Airfix! Let's hope they come back soon.

john

a good sales manager will do his homework. he will check sales, countries, kits and what sells where. airfix can be brought back with slective production, research and new kits and even some updates. if the company can reorganize, size itself correctly and concentrate on it's strengths, it has a shot. 3-5 years could turn around the company. or kill it. i like almost all of their propellar and swastika kits with the observation that corrections and upgrades would help. good marketing will also add a lot. i'n closely watching with juxtaposed pedal extremities.

you're a genius!. "fun for the money" is indeed a valid concept and a good goal. i wish lindberg woule bing bacl their fun for the money kits! good one, dougie, you nailed it.

nailed it! good lad, enzo.

Well It seems that you are all still fond of Airfix, as am I despite some of my negative points, the point I was tryoing to make is that no- ine really wants to see Airfix rise just to fall yet again inside 5 years. I hope as do most of you that they will bring back some of the kits other manufacturers will not tackle such as the Bv141, Saunders Roe rocket fighter, the old bill bus and the Dennis fire engine to name , but a few, but and here was my original thought if they do they need to bring them back at a competeitve price, Airfix kit's are not cheap and those that are, are well out of date Mig-15 & F-5A for example. Think about this, if they were cheap why did Airfix go bust? Think about the competition Revell and Academy and the new kid on the block Hobby Boss all of these companies produce much higher quality kits at a similar cost, in most cases lower than the Airfix selling Price. I have no idea what Airfix kits retail for in the States, but back here in England more often than not they are out priced and out detailed and unless Hornby really do get stuck into some serious market research I fear the fuutre is bleak. I like you wish them every success and yes as one replyee put it lets see some other manufacturers having another go, there is always a market for retro style kits provided the price is right and if it brings in new blood all the better.

Apparently, we can expect a 1/48 Canberra and TSR2, and a 1/72 Nimrod. There's an RNLI lifeboat on the way too. Hornby are a pretty safe pair of hands. They understand the hobby industry, and importantly they understand the industry's customers. Hopefully they'll start by selling off some of the older moulds to people like Eastern Express, and use the money to tool up for some quality stuff. This is one to watch with interest.

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Doug said the following on 19/04/07 20:17:

Just had a long chat with a mate who works at a model shop and it looks like the list hasn't changed much and might be a bit worse as it sounds like the gift sets are being pushed more than anything else.

Some of the molds are lost, some may still be impounded by the French and some have been modified so can't be reverted to the original, the VC10 being one such example. Also, the metal aircraft miniatures took over sales of models in general over the past years with plastics taking a back seat. Interestingly, metals have now taken a bit of a plunge with one company burying some of its later editions.

I'm keeping my replies for the next Airfix crash.

Richard.

Those awful gift sets, at my guess, are being pushed because warehouses are full of them. It makes good business sense to get rid of these, and the alternative would be to either scrap them or sell them at very low prices which would devalue the brand; exactly what you don't want to do if you're attempting a relaunch.

Successive management teams at Airfix have failed to understand the market they operate in. Airfix appears to have been run by the same people who ran the NHS in the 1980s, that is to say managers who have been successful in other areas but who have had no understanding of what they're trying to achieve in their new business. They saw all the old, crappy kits simply as product and failed to see it was outclassed and needed a radical overhaul, offering a smaller but better quality range of kits that serious modellers actually wanted to buy. The new management appear to be making steps in that direction, which is a start at least.

Hornby have made an excellent job of positioning themselves in the model railway market, and there should be no reason why they shouldn't be able to make a decent fist of it with Airfix. Anyway, I could do with a few more

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Here in my neck of the woods (eastern US) Airfix kits run from about $6 for a 1/72 Spitfire or 109 on up to about $35 for the larger boxes/ scales.Compared to @$18 for an average smallish Tamiya and $25-35 for similar Hasegawa kits,so it's a great value over here,for what it is. I'd like to see the TSR2 rereleased as well.I never even got to see one,and most of them seem to have been done as what-ifs.I just want a nice white one...

i suspect the market driven forces are more complex than we may know. if it was simple as (i'm not saying you're simpl!e) good kits=sales, then some upgrades would do it. modeler's are also dying off without much replacement. there is a level after which sustainablity is lost. i don't know where. wish my crystal ball hadn't turned out to be a a marketing gimmick.

didn't they run the motorbike industry in the 60's? seems like the clue club hasn't hit them at all.

yeah, what he said!

The old styrene ones? Some of the poly figures are in release from other manufacturers.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

I have to say that the introduction of the gift sets was one of the biggest reasons for Airfix's demise, as an example Airfix 1/24th Honda NSR500 Grand Prix motorbike =A33.99 on it's own and =A37.99, in a gift pack, so four extra quid for 3 small pots of useless paint, a plastic brush with the thickest nylon bristles I have ever seen and a samll tube of glue, says it all really!!!! If Hornby are going to rely on these kits to get them out of trouble, RIP Airfix!!!!

Airfix did some rather nice hard plastic figure kits in 54mm. I built the Bengal Lancer and the Royal Scots Grey cavalryman. There were quite a few others.

Firstly Hornby appear to know what they are doing

Secondly cheap kits are great for children to learn modelling