The 'Money Programme' shown tonight on UK Television BBC2, showed a really interesting insight into th current Airfix empire that was taken over by Hornby in August 2006 by Frank Martin the chief executive of the current Airfix company.
It said that most of the former Airfix modellers who purchased the original kits were now over 40 years old and the company is seeking the attention of todays youth to build up on new products to be issued in the future,to this end they have concluded a licensing deal with the 'Doctor Who' people to produce a set which included a Tardis box,and a beautifully sculptured figure's of Freeman Agiman & David Tenant ( FG who incidently has left the 'Dr Who' series and caused a dilemma for Airfix as a decision to go ahead,but they did )
At a cost of two and a half million pounds, the complete set of rusting Airfix tooling was salvaged from Heller in France last September, bringing it back to Margate for careful cleaning up and storage in a huge warehouse,Trevor Snowdon the chief designer for Airfix proudly pointed to serial 01319 which were the moulds for the Airfix DUKW, after receiving the huge shipment of tooling by road at Margate.
Seventy years ago things were very different with 30 million Airfix kits being produced in a single year,the original company was started by an Hungarian genius called Kough who set about establishing the kit business at Haldane Place in London,this well known address so familiar to us is now the Riverside Business centre.
Trevor Snowdon spent many hours at a secret location in Wales photographing and measuring up the Doctor Who artifacts,his large black and white segmented measuring stick being hand held against the items and a huge set of calipers to measure tricky complex curves !
Next week he could be seen at the Newarke Air Museum crawling over a Canbrra PR.7 in preparation for a 1=48th scale Canberra kit that comes out in January 2008.
Everything has not always been plain sailing especially with delays to get the Tardis set out for Christmas time,the pictures for David Tenant in Doctor Who were delayed causing an emergency meeting with Darrel Burge who is the Airfix marketing manager,while Design Works in Windsor sculptured the figures for sending to Intex in Japan, to do the necessary tooling where Mike Walters the development director of Airfix was sent out to oversee things.
Meanwhile the Airfix roadshow was on tour in the UK with a first call at R.A.F Cosford for the annual airshow, where members of the Airfix club were delighted to see examples of the new and revised products.
The delay in getting the new product on the shelves for the Christmas period prompted a small batch of 56 of the Tardis kits to be delivered to the BigD Powerstore,these were eagerly snapped up and a promise of a further 23,000 items to be delivered after the Christmas period,when one realises that all of this has happened in less than a year with no steel cut for the moulds for at least several months, then it shows how hard Airfix have worked to get things on the shelves,the kit itself has a flashing blue light on top of the box and a chip which gives a sound effect.
The aim of the new era Airfix company is to seek out franchises worlwide to produce unusual and attractive items,more new aircraft kits have also been promised as well.
So everyone is working really hard to make sure that this iconic brand name is still active with some exciting kits done with enthusiasm by the curtrent custodians at Airfix.
It said that most of the former Airfix modellers who purchased the original kits were now over 40 years old and the company is seeking the attention of todays youth to build up on new products to be issued in the future,to this end they have concluded a licensing deal with the 'Doctor Who' people to produce a set which included a Tardis box,and a beautifully sculptured figure's of Freeman Agiman & David Tenant ( FG who incidently has left the 'Dr Who' series and caused a dilemma for Airfix as a decision to go ahead,but they did )
At a cost of two and a half million pounds, the complete set of rusting Airfix tooling was salvaged from Heller in France last September, bringing it back to Margate for careful cleaning up and storage in a huge warehouse,Trevor Snowdon the chief designer for Airfix proudly pointed to serial 01319 which were the moulds for the Airfix DUKW, after receiving the huge shipment of tooling by road at Margate.
Seventy years ago things were very different with 30 million Airfix kits being produced in a single year,the original company was started by an Hungarian genius called Kough who set about establishing the kit business at Haldane Place in London,this well known address so familiar to us is now the Riverside Business centre.
Trevor Snowdon spent many hours at a secret location in Wales photographing and measuring up the Doctor Who artifacts,his large black and white segmented measuring stick being hand held against the items and a huge set of calipers to measure tricky complex curves !
Next week he could be seen at the Newarke Air Museum crawling over a Canbrra PR.7 in preparation for a 1=48th scale Canberra kit that comes out in January 2008.
Everything has not always been plain sailing especially with delays to get the Tardis set out for Christmas time,the pictures for David Tenant in Doctor Who were delayed causing an emergency meeting with Darrel Burge who is the Airfix marketing manager,while Design Works in Windsor sculptured the figures for sending to Intex in Japan, to do the necessary tooling where Mike Walters the development director of Airfix was sent out to oversee things.
Meanwhile the Airfix roadshow was on tour in the UK with a first call at R.A.F Cosford for the annual airshow, where members of the Airfix club were delighted to see examples of the new and revised products.
The delay in getting the new product on the shelves for the Christmas period prompted a small batch of 56 of the Tardis kits to be delivered to the BigD Powerstore,these were eagerly snapped up and a promise of a further 23,000 items to be delivered after the Christmas period,when one realises that all of this has happened in less than a year with no steel cut for the moulds for at least several months, then it shows how hard Airfix have worked to get things on the shelves,the kit itself has a flashing blue light on top of the box and a chip which gives a sound effect.
The aim of the new era Airfix company is to seek out franchises worlwide to produce unusual and attractive items,more new aircraft kits have also been promised as well.
So everyone is working really hard to make sure that this iconic brand name is still active with some exciting kits done with enthusiasm by the curtrent custodians at Airfix.
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