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Airfix

Airfix was founded in 1939 by Nicholas Kove, a Hungarian businessman who was initially manufacturing inflatable rubber toys. The name Airfix was chosen so it would come first in a toy catalogue. in 1947, Airfix pioreered injection moulding and initially produced pocket combs. In 1949 it was asked to create a promotional model of a Ferguson TE20 tractor which was hand-assembled and given to Ferguson sales representatives. To lower costs and increase sales the model was later sold in kit form by (the now defunct) Woolworths.

A few years later, Woolworths suggested that Airfix produce a model of Sir Francis Drake's Golden Hind currently being sold in America as a "ship in a bottle". The kit would be made from a more stable plastic and to cut costs it would be placed in a plastic bag rather than a box. This was such a huge success that Airfix decided to create more kits. The first aircraft kit was released in 1955 and that was a model of the Supermarine Spitfire in 1/72 scale.


In the following 20 years the company expanded greatly as the model kit market grew enormously and the range expanded to include cars, motorcycles, figures, trains, military vehicles, warships, ocean liners, rockets and spaceships. Originally all their models were 1/72 scale and 1/144 scale for the larger ships and ocean liners, but newer sizes such as 1/24 scale models were introduced to widen the market. In the mid-1970s, Airfix were at their peak, introducing almost 20 new kits per year and they had 75% of the UK modelling market with around 20 million kits being sold per year.

In 1971, Airfix purchased Meccano and Dinky Toys making them the UKs largest toy company by since then the plastic kit modelling market has been in decline - mostly due to the emergence of every improving computers and games - and this eventually lead to Airfix declaring bankrupcy in 1981. The company was then brought by the hobby arm of Borden Inc. This partnership worked well as Borden already owned Humbrol which produced the paints and glues used to build the model kits. Hornby industries eventually wen on to acquire all the rights to Airfix and relaunched the Airfix brand in the UK.

Still going strong today, and due to its long life and age-boundary crossing appeal, the Airfix name has become synonymous with the hobby itself, with all modelling kits now generally being referred to as an 'Airfix kit'.