I suspect that just about every modeler out there has built an Airfix model at one time in his or her modeling career.  Although I cut my teeth on kits from North American manufacturers such as Aurora, Monogram, and Revell, soon enough I discovered the huge range of Airfix kits (in fact, I remember filling loot bags for my 6^th birthday party with Series 1 Sherman kits).  Part of the appeal of Airfix kits was the fact that they were in (more or less) constant scale: not only airplanes, but also military vehicles and even figures were available in 1/72 or “OO/HO” scale, which allowed for endless play and display possibilities.

Arthur Ward captures the spirit of those heady days of youth when we could have a model airplane built and painted by lunchtime, and then send it off to its doom at the hands of enemy antiaircraft fire (either a BB gun, firecracker, or just set on fire) and weaves a fascinating, although somewhat scattered, story of the rise, fall, and resurrection of Airfix, one of the very first plastic kit manufacturers.  Ward is obviously an Airfix enthusiast (and also a former employee), and the term “celebration” in the title is justified, for this beautifully produced book celebrates the people and products of Airfix from its beginnings in 1952 to the dawn of the 21^st century and serves as a reminder of just how trend-setting and innovative this company was.

Instead of being a more conventional narrative history of the company, this book is more of an oral history, with the author drawing extensively on interviews he has conducted with and about many of the personalities which played a role in the development of the company.  This means that certain episodes in the company’s history are revisited at different times throughout the book, making the ‘story’ of Airfix a little more difficult to follow.  Nevertheless, there are some great anecdotes that provide fascinating insights into how model manufacturers create kits; in particular, the tale of the close working relationship between Hawker Siddeley and Airfix during the latter’s design of the 1/24 scale Harrier is an interesting story.

“Might-have-beens” are always a fascinating aspect of these books.  For me, the biggest one is the kit which Airfix planned to release in 1981, the year of its bankruptcy, of the submarine Nautilus from the 1954 movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.  Other big “what-if” kits mentioned are a 1/24 scale Mosquito, 1/24 scale Gladiator, 1/32 Monty’s Caravan, and 1/12 scale Rolls-Royce.  This book’s glimpse into how model companies decide which kits to do or not, along with tales of which kits were money-makers (for instance, I would never have expected the 1/721 scale Sea King helicopter to be on Airfix’s top six sellers of all time list) and which flopped, is quite educational for those of us who constantly wonder why a manufacturer doesn’t make a model of our favourite subject in our favourite scale.

Once again, I am reminded of how important a role box art played in my choice of kits in my youth, and how evocative those images are today.  In the case of Airfix, the superb illustrations of Roy Cross sold many a kit to me (the B-17, B-29, and Panther tank shooting up a medical convoy were particular favourites).  Of course, as is so often the case with vintage kits, what was on the cover and what was inside the box sometimes bore only a passing resemblance to each other.  The beautiful illustrations in this book are worth the price alone.

Unlike Thomas Graham’s Aurora and Revell books, the comprehensive kit list at the end of this book is not annotated, nor does it have a price list or even scales listed.  While the scales of most Airfix kits are well-known, there are still some gray areas here.  The list also does not track the different boxings of kits, again unlike the Graham books, so this book may be of less use to collectors.