I was amazed a few days ago to see on Scalemates that Airfix was adding 1/35 armor to their catalogue.
https://www.airfix.com/uk-en/shop/vehicles/military-vehicles/scale/1-35.html?
No less than 16 kits, including staples as Tiger (5 of them!), Pz IV ausf H, M10 TD, Hetzer…
I haven’t built an Airfix kit in a very long time but I can’t help being curious, considering the great job they seem to have recently did on their B-17 and 1/48 Mustang…
My understanding is that they’re reboxed Academy kits.
I wonder if they’re original molds or purchased from another manufacturer. I will wait for reviews first.
Phil, you beat me by seconds. LOL
Interesting… If it is true, I wonder what is the interest behind, as Academy kits are very common and easy to come by…
As Phil says, the general view is that they are re-boxed Academy. I have not seen anything offical, i think scalemates is still listing the history as unknown. But one of the Mods on the Airfix forum confirm they were and the price and range makes sense.
These days everyone seems to be re-boxing everyone elses kits.
Most of those new tool Academy kits are nice. I don’t know if Academy has a foot in the door into the UK market. Especially now with all the brexit trade issues. But yes, mold swapping is very common these days.
That same thought occured to me. Makes me wonder what the Chinese might do.
I remember the Airfix armor kits of years gone by, which were 1/76 scale. I think I have an unbuilt 88 and prime mover in the stash somewhere.
Airfix also did some nice 1/32 armor kits. A Crusader III, a Lee and Grant, Monty’s Humber, Rommel’s Greif, and a few others. Not many, but they were pretty well done. They also recently jumped into the 1/48 armor game. In years past they have had boxing’s of other companies’ 1/35 armor kits now and again. I’d love to see them really get back into their own tooling 1/35 or 1/32 armor kits and cover all those Brit subjects that everyone else ignores.
Yessir, all those Cruiser type tanks.
Many years ago, in addition to their pretty decent 1/32 scale armor, they reboxed 1/35 scale Peerless Max kits before the molds went to Italeri.
Academy armour kits are pretty easy to get hold of over here, this could be a way for them to get round any future issues. Airfix have done this before, they re-boxed one of Trumpeters Challenger 2 kits in 2004.
I am guessing this is just a way to get into the 35th armour market without the expense of new moulds. Airfix may well reach people who would not think of getting an Academy armour kit, and even those who might not consider armour. They are still a big presence in model shops, they are the singlelargest brand in my LHS.
Be interesting to see if it comes off.
I’d vote for a Lee/Grant Canal Defence Light tank too. The British made good use of these at Geilenkirchen and Remagen, there was a plan to deploy them to Okinawa, and the US looked at developing a M4 based vehicle for the Korean conflict.
Academy sold a really nice Grant, Takom sells a pricey CDL kit, and Resicast sells a really pricey conversion kit.
And they had their 1/72 armor kits, too, back in the day. I built some of those in the diorama sets that they sold. I remember a D-Day Sherman, a USMC Lee on Guadalcanal, a Mathilda, and I think the Crusader III, too. I remember those soft tracks that closed with pins, that you were supposed to flare with the heated tip of a screwdriver.
A bit more info from Airfix themselves, scroll towards the bottom:
https://www.airfix.com/uk-en/news/workbench/new-2019-airfix-range-unleashed
As far as cruiser tanks go, Gecko and Bronco have put out several kits of the A9/ A10 configuration quite recently. A comparison between the two has one slightly larger than the other, but no one has got the answer of which company is more correct.
regards,
Jack
Thanks for the link Jack. They seem to be reacting to the complaints about lack of new tool and so many ancientkits out this year. I see they don’t mention who the modelling associates are.
Yes, Bronco and Gecko are making some of the WWII stuff like the cruiser tanks. A Ram and Kangaroo Ram would be nice to see. And there is so much Cold War stuff out there not covered. All sorts of AFVs besides the MBTs and some of the basic APCs and ICVs and a couple scout vehicles are not covered. The rest of the S family on the same hull as the Scorpion and Scimitar would be great to have.
Some more CVR(t)'s would deffinetly be welcome, as with a lot of British stuff, your current option is Accurate Armour resin kits. It was nice to see the Husky and the recent line up of land rovers and i am looking forward to the Hobby Boss kits. But the cold war period is deffinetly missing a lot of subjects. I guess most plastic model company’s think that would have such a small following its not worth the expense.
Yes… The Fox & Ferret, the FV 600 series… there is so much stuff to yet be covered. Forget paper Panzers, give me stuff that was for real and saw combat around the world.
Airfix’s original small scale armor kits were listed as 00 scale. Later they were marketed as 1/76 scale, which is their true scale. When 1/72 became more popular, the exact same 1/76 scale kits were then relisted as 1/72 scale.
In the 2000s, after Heller and Airfix sort of merged, they began producing real 1/72 scale kits like the WW2 Willys Jeep, GMC 6x6, and LCVP that were released in both Airfix and Heller boxings but were the exact same kits.
Airfix’s airfield support kits were always in 1/72 scale to go with 1/72 scale aircraft.