Airfix Soft Plastic Napoleonic Figure

[Blind Pew]

I daresay most of us on here grew up with these, or an equivalent in whatever country you're from. I see what we do as an extension of it, really. I've great memories of these. I used to blow them up with the contents of a Standard 3-2-1 banger. I was shouted at frequently as a kid....

 

[Merryweather]

Always loved these and I still have mine, with the paint flaking off, can't bring myself to get rid of them. Such a shame about the soft plastic, I never managed a decent clean-up of the mould lines.
I totally agree about airfix missing a trick with the collector's series, I have a nasty feeling the moulds don't exist any more...
Thanks for sharing and sparking a wave of nostalgia

 

[Briggsy]

Just caught up on all this, yes loads of memories of painting and playing with them in the 70's. My main focus in the later 70's though was the Tamiya figures, I'd get paid for my paper round on Saturday and be straight on the bus for Bradford City centre. A department store had a modelling floor, straight up there and choose a pack, never earnt enough for the vehicles though, and back home on the bus. They'd all be painted by Sunday lunch time, but then I joined the Army so the pay went on beer mostly and I forgot all about model figures for a few years.

Cheers Simon

 

[arj]

Thank you for for your extensive description of what happened with the 'soft' plasic Airfix figures Troy.
I was totally unaware of what transpired.
Every day's a school day.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

[MalcC]

Those figures bring back some memories of my younger days.
Nice painting too.

Malc

 

[Troy Smith]

Always loved these and I still have mine, with the paint flaking off, can't bring myself to get rid of them. Such a shame about the soft plastic, I never managed a decent clean-up of the mould lines.
I totally agree about airfix missing a trick with the collector's series, I have a nasty feeling the moulds don't exist any more...
Thanks for sharing and sparking a wave of nostalgia

One of the Airfix buffs on Britmodeller says they all still exist IIRC. Maybe they just don't see a market for them, Airfix suffer from being shackled to Hornby and beancounters, an keep a pretty small range in catalogue, but it's not like the 70's when pretty much every small town had a shop selling models, and it was, or seemed to be everywhere.
Be interesting to find out the logistics of small runs from existing moulds... Next time I'm at Modelworx/Plastech I shall inquire...

Thank you for for your extensive description of what happened with the 'soft' plasic Airfix figures Troy.
I was totally unaware of what transpired.
Every day's a school day.

Cheers,
Andrew

A pleasure, I don't know what the current 'Vintage Classics' are moulded in, but the red box ones are easily available on ebay, for about what they sell the 'Vintage Classics' at, and all the ones I have are in K-resin, so maybe worth picking some up for a play about.
I cab't spot of of the modified ones I sometimes see on ebay,
I've not got around to doing any cut ups, but I should really.... I still have masses of built and leftover Multipose stashed away.. I also have far too many other kits stashed away so I do get distracted, along with the research rabbit holes....

cheers
T

 

[TERRYSOMME1916]

Good to see this thread getting another run, even reading through the recent posts conjures up more memories that start of with the different sets of figures and then drifts onto just general memories of school days, pocket money, the local model shop and other shops that stocked the figures, the music of the day and, well life seemed a lot simpler back then.
Enjoyed the link showing the figure sets.
TERRY

 

[blaster]

Hello hello,
I see a lot of familiar names here all airifix acolytes.
I’m from Singapore and am friends with two of the largest importer distributors of airfix products in the region. Thru them, I had the good fortune to have met with the then sales mkt director (George Beers I think) many years ago who was passing thru spore. He asked me what should they be producing for the D-day anniversary. I can’t remember which year and I told him to include a Sherman tank, dukw, lcm and German pillbox. Obvious I thought but he gave me a Wasa sailing ship kit as a gift for my suggestion. He did share with me the reasons why they produce injection model kits in batches. Typically about 20000 sets are produced each time. The sales worldwide are a few thousand in the first two years then drop drastically to a few tens for the subsequent years. So each production batch is only revived every decade!!! Every year, the mgmt decides which kits to produce based on their budget. Now you see why the kits languish for years.

Btw, one of my friends own the old Frog label as well

Rgds
Fairly Historically Accurate Vic