Hornby cements Airfix future

Hornby has acquired assets of Humbrol Ltd including Airfix model kits, they intend to move sales, marketing and distribution to their Margate base, they are paying £2.6 million in cash for the business.

There is no reason to doubt that Hornby will be successful with their acquisition, they certainly have the expertise in selling this type of product, it's just unfortunate that along with many British companies they are very good at sales and marketing but are unlikely to manufacture the Airfix brand in this country.

My children's generation who were bought up on computers and games consoles and are probably unaware of the Airfix brand but for my generation those roughly 40 to 50 there will be plenty of nostalgia. I personally have spent many a happy hour glueing parts of Spitfires, Lancasters together sometimes to the correct corresponding piece sometimes to my mother's dining-table but most frequently to my fingers.

I understand that part of their plans involve simpler products than in the past, aimed at a younger market this can only be a good thing, believe it or not I never bothered reading the instructions so many of my models even when fresh from the Tony Flaig production-line looked as if they've had a nasty encounter perhaps with a Fokker Wolf 190.