We are constantly encouraged to buy stuff we don’t really want, ideally without thinking about it. The Airfix Red Stripe era was peak Mad Men and our young consumer was up against some serious marketing. But in those days, it wasn’t confronting us in every single waking moment.
A long-running perfume ad campaign went on about how men in particular “can’t help acting on impulse”, but the sensory cues coaxing us into impulse buying model aeroplanes were definitely visual. Overdramatic box art really came into its own – if an exotic aircraft wasn’t tempting enough on its own, all sorts of mayhem would be going on in the background.
Temptation behind the Pic ‘n’ Mix
All this sensory overload meant some very unexpected impulse buys. Airfix kits of aircraft which were completely unknown before I stood gazing at them in Woolworths.
Like the Kittyhawk, shown here flying over a scene of destruction in the Western Desert. Slightly fanciful Axis vehicles are mixed in with some very Allied looking trucks. We see a starboard view of the aircraft – the port side says GA-Y which might not have been the look Airfix wanted pre-1966.
You’re gonna need a bigger display case
The sharkmouth nose art also made quite an impression, and continued to appeal for a long time afterwards. Once my parents had moved to a more culturally diverse area where Frog kits were available, I built a Tomahawk in AVG markings.
Some years later, a Tomcat in VF-111 markings didn’t get quite so far – project cancelled due to airbrushing issues, or the victim of an awkward transition between 1/72 and 1/48. Possibly just a general loss of motivation.
The sharkmouth was still tempting for a Hasegawa F-16C which never got built, along with its notional partner – an F-4G which never got past the shopping list stage.
All this feeding frenzy eventually led to a 1/48 Tamiya A-10 – the last model I ever actually finished.
Inexplicable impulses
Some of those impulses were just baffling – then and now. An early start to all those “WTF was I thinking?” moments in adult life.
When the Airfix Boston and Hudson came out, I really liked the look of the Boston. I must have sort of liked both, which is how I ended up taking a Hudson home instead.
Not this particular one, obviously:
The Hudson kit looks super fiddly with all those small windows in the fuselage. Fortunately they are too thick to see through clearly, which hides the inevitable misplaced blobs of glue.
There’s also a weird gunner with no lower half – he plugs straight into the turret base. Presumably this miniature cyborg made the production process easier. An early inspiration for the space jockey in Alien, perhaps?
Here’s what you could’ve won
But for some reason I never bought an Airfix Boston until recently. Just out of curiosity, to see what it was actually like. It looks very much like this on the outside, with yet another dramatic raid going on:
Inside the box it’s all fairly predictable, various small pieces of neutral grey plastic. Which would build a small grey model of a Douglas Boston. If someone was so inclined.
Peace in our time
As time went on, someone decided it was a Bad Thing for children to associate military aircraft with anything destructive. They might be unable to control their violent impulses, rather than just uncontrollably spending their pocket money. So box art had to calm down for a bit, with just a few practice weapons hinting at the possibility of violence.
Violent delights make a comeback
More time passed, and in the age of Grand Theft Auto any moral panic over box art faded away. Looking at an Airfix Sea King ASaC.7 on eBay recently with a mixture of morbid curiosity and nostalgia, some very graphic box art caught my eye – the Profipack Fokker Dr.1 from Eduard. Which could perhaps be small enough for a viable project, if the temptation ever got too strong…
Needless to say I got outbid on the Sea King, and ended up with this Fokker. But it seems the Sea King would’ve been a classic case of acting on impulse – disappointing once you actually open the box.