Airfix Nostalgia - The Story Continues

My Airfix nostalgia project started almost exactly 6 years ago. When I created my first post on the subject, I indicated the project was just about complete! And now here we are 6 years later.

Yes, the original idea was "five kits only". Now I have 24 completed, and 4 waiting to be made. The motivation comes and goes, but this looks very much like a project that will be ongoing - until my eyesight goes, or the motor skills in my hands fail. What has not changed about the project is the pleasure I am getting from buying and making these kits. There have been frustrations and the odd loss of temper, but overall this quiet, solitary branch of my hobby activity continues to deliver; supplying moments of peace and tranquility, nostalgia, childhood memories and a sense of achievment.

My favourite 'makes' are the original kits from the 1960s, in their original packaging. The Me-262 and Bf-110 shown below are good examples. It's worth saying that I generally paint these old kits as recommended in the original instructions, ignoring the fact that the paint schemes suggested were often inaccurate. It's all part of the nostalgia.

I try and go for the classic Roy Cross artwork, but sometimes I can't resist a kit from before the Roy Cross era, like the Me-262 above with its very early packaging, probably from the early 60s. I love the old-school instructions, from before the days of wordless instruction sheets designed for international sales. The main issue is the old decals, which are sometimes unusable. But remarkably, in the majority of cases, I have been able to use all or most of the c.60 year old decals, which gives me great pleasure. My friends here have been bottles of Microset and Microsol, which are indispensable companions of the 'classic kit' builder. 

I have not restricted myself just to old Airfix kits. Below you can see a P-47 by Academy, and an Airfix P-51 from their current range. I enjoyed making them, but modern kits for me generally have too much detail (particularly too much cockpit detail), which results in too many fiddly little parts that you often can't even see on the finished model. I have also found that using modern kits sometimes doesn't even solve the decal issue - the decals on the P-47 were frankly crap, and I had to buy a new set from a specialist decal supplier. It appears that Academy decals are well known to be troublesome.

I am mostly sticking to 1/72nd, but my eldest son gifted me a 1/48th kit for Christmas 2024 which gave the 'project' a nice boost. It took me a while, and the expected 'fiddly' parts were there, but I persevered through bouts of swearing and cussing to produce what I think is a very nice model - the floatplane version of the Japanese 'Zero' fighter.

Recently, I have gone back to my original inspiration of classic Airfix 1/72nd. A real little gem was the old Airfix Tiger Moth. I originally bought the current Airfix Tiger Moth kit from a model shop, but this was a sad mistake. The 'fiddly parts' and the super thin wing struts defeated me, and the whole thing ended up in the bin. So I got hold of the gloriously yellow original and it went together like a dream. One of my favourites in the collection, with all-original decals.

My most recent completion has been a Boulton-Paul Defiant, another fond memory from childhood days. Again, a wonderful, straightforward build with parts that fitted nicely. The decals were a bit of an issue, as they started to break up and split as I applied them, but an unexpected bout of patience (of which I generally have a rather short supply) came to my rescue. After some touching-up with acrylic paints, the kit was rescued.

Now then. Not all my kits are of aircraft - there has been some military vehicle nostalgia as well. All of those shown below are from the Vintage Classics range. In this range, you get the old kits as they were, with the Roy Cross artwork and nice new decals. On the downside, the instruction sheets aren't 'classic' - we're back to those modern exploded views full of symbols but no words. Still, this range is a nice compromise between obtaining the old models through online dealers, tired decals and all, and buying models from the current range. In the end, I have found the latter really don't do it for me.

The model of the DUKW represents a double wammy of nostalgia - I remember building the original, and the caption relates to my Dad who drove one up the beach at Anzio, back in January 1944. For the Stug III I weakened and gave it a vaguely genuine paint scheme appropriate to the Eastern Front, rather than the plain dark green featured on the box art. I dare say Roy Cross is turning in his grave.

And finally, my current project, which is a Tamiya 1/35th Panther A. It looks like a modern kit, but dates right back to the 60s when it was brought out as a motorised novelty toy. It's been re-issued many times over the years, with the motorisation bits now deleted. It is much vilified for inaccuracy by present-day modellers, but it's half the price of Tamiya's more recent Panther kits - and guess what, the number of the infamous fiddly parts is about half as well. The moulds are obviously in good nick as all parts are crisply presented and the kit goes together pretty well. I think it will look pretty classy. Good fun.

And that's about it. There's a modern Airfix Vampire kit waiting to be made up, a lovely old 1960s Beaufighter likewise (so old it's bagged rather than boxed), and a Vintage Classics P-61 Black Widow also on the shelf in the 'study'. I'm looking forward to plenty of relaxing modelling for the rest of the year. And I've avoided buying loads of tempting kits and creating the well-known 'pile of shame'!

That's All Folks! 'Til next time.