Airfix has been one of my favorite brands for decades, and that's even though in the 2010s, it was far behind in terms of modeling technology, the mere idea of producing the Zero from the 60s in that decade was quite a challenge.
I learned about the brand back in the seventies, when my grandfather took me on his business trips and in meetings, he would leave me quiet, in a corner of the room, assembling and painting a model, or he would take me to a store, where the models cost 50 pence each, I bought a lot and I would put them together on the flight back to Mexico, those times when you could get on a plane with glue, paints and scissors, I still have a few of those models, and when I see them , I remember my grandfather's great affection and those beautiful years of childhood, and of course, all those models were Airfix.
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| One of the few models that survived from that era |
In Mexico they were not easily available, here was the kingdom of Lodela, a brand that many of us grew up with, and remember, but which disappeared in the nineties, leaving many modellers nostalgic and in search of other hobbies.
Returning to Airfix, their models generally did not offer a great challenge to assemble them, unless you decided to modify them, scratch them, or my favorite part of the Hobby, paint them, in different versions, one of the advantages of having a store is I could order complete boxes of a single model, and that's how I got 25 Zeros, some were sold, but I actually wanted them for myself, the model was terrible, poorly proportioned, with a huge helmet and no interior, but that was the fun part, making the pieces, thermoforming the helmet, making the rudders out of polystyrene, correcting the cowlings, so that they would better adjust to the different versions, the model in theory represented a Type 21, the one from Pearl Harbor, but I made almost all the variations, of the Type 21 to 62, except for the A6M4, for which there was no data.
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| An Airfix Zero, heavily modified, to represent a trainer |
Airfix changed owners again, and is now updating, its new models are State of the Art and I want to buy a new box of Zeros, from new tooling, to continue completing my collection, which is still very incomplete, I The Zeros of several aircraft carriers and aces are missing, in addition to the rare versions, as soon as this inflationary stage passes, I will do it, to see if Airfix makes different versions of the Zero in the meantime.
Even now, when I open a red box of the new Airfix, I have that feeling of when my grandfather gave me a box, it is such a beautiful memory, that I can repeat as many times as I need, recreate a childhood happiness, many decades later, although to be honest , there are new Airfix models, which from the modeler's point of view, are much better, but I will always love those simple blister models from my childhood.
