TREVOR PASK 2 LIBRARY SHIREAIRFIX KITS SHIRE PUBLICATIONSPublished in Great Britain in 2010 by Shire Publications Ltd, Midland House, West Way, Botley, Oxford OX2 OPH, United Kingdom, 44-02 23rd Street, Suite 219, Long Island City, NY 11101, USA. E-mail: shire@shirebooks.co.uk www:shirebooks.co.uk © 2010 Trevor Pask All rights reserved, Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, fon may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or 1 part ofthis public by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be addressed to the Publishers, Every attempt has been made by the Publishers to secure the appropriate permissions for materials reproduced in this book, If there has been any oversight we will be happy to reetify the situation andl a written submission should be ‘made to the Publishers, ACIP catalogue record for this book is available from the Bri Shit Library. Library no. 598, ISBN-13; 978.0 74780791 9 Trevor Pask has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this book. Designed by Mt in Perpetua and Printed in China through Worldprint Ld. m Bell Design, France and typeset Sans 101112 13 14 10987654321 Shire Pubkations ie spporting the Woellnd Trust, the Us leading won comer sation hari by fing te COVER IMAGE An Airfix advertisement from the 1975 catalogue. TITLE PAGE IMAGE The'Tiger Moth kit in the short-lived ‘blister’ type packaging used by Airfix in the mid 1970s, CONTENTS PAGE IMAGE Twe one years later the RAP’s Jaguar fighters were painted pale pink and fought in the first Gulf War, but in 1970 they had only just flown as prototypes. Airfix was quick off the mark with a kit AUTHOR'S NOTE With special thanks to Darel! Burge of Hornby for being so _generous in allowing access to the image archive at Hornby/ Airfix, to Steven S, Pietrobon for advice and to Mario gery, to Peter van Lune for images Wens for imagery, inke Austin for proofies encouragement, and to my mother who bought me the first kit but who sadly died a few months before this book was completed. She often did not like the mess, but Lam sure she would have thought it was all worthwhile in the end! afte CONTENTS HOW THE ‘AIRFIX KIT’ CAME ABOUT THE EARLY YEARS — KOVE, COMBS AND KITS THE GOLDEN YEARS SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE: THE 1970s DIFFICULT YEARS AND A RENAISSANCE THE AIRFIX STYLE: BOX ART AND PACKAGING BIBLIO. APHY INDEX 12 18 32 40 46 55 56