Airfix: Celebrating 50 years of the greatest plastic kits in the world

By Arthur Ward

Airfix models will be 50 years old in 1999. Only a very sad minority of men aged 30-50 did not make Airfix kits when they were boys. This book enables the rest of us to relive the glory days of our plastic air forces (or tank fleets) and perhaps to pass the torch to our children.

Superbly executed studio photographs show all the obscure and highly collectible kits as well as the best sellers, with illustrations of the packets, box art, adverts in 1960s and 1970s magazines, and a mass of period ephemera. The accompanying text charts the rise, fall and rise again of Airfix models. It’s a jolly read, a nostalgic reminder of kits long vanished, but with a happy ending: Airfix are now re-releasing 40 kits a year, bringing back some not seen for twenty years.