Resitech/Toad/Aarvaark/Swan/Heritage resin TSR.2

[TsrJoe]

Resitech/Toad/Aardvaark/Swan/Heritage ... !

[The Wooksta!]

Heritage TSR2 - parentage and myriad fuzzy bunny offspring.

Are you sitting comfortably?  Then we'll begin.

Way back in the mists of time, about 1993, two guys in the resin kit business came together and formed Resitech.  Their products were way ahead of the UK competition, being well designed and well cast, with resin, white metal and etched brass.  They created some superb kits and their crowning glory was the BAC TSR2.

Resitech also did work for other companies, one of which being Toad Resins, who released a range of Luftwaffe late war types and projects, as kits and conversions.  Some of Toad's earlier stuff was a bit rough but eminently useable and you got some good models out of them.  However, when Resitech's Phil Robertson started doing their masters, the quality shot up.  The Me 265, Me 329 and Junkers Ju 488A were fantastic if a little expensive kits.

However, it couldn't last and it didn't.  For reasons my solicitors have advised me not to divulge, Resitech split and the masters ended up in various hands. 

The split also sucked down Toad Resins for a time, but they came back with a TSR2.  This was the Resitech master but simplified, with some of the brass attached to the white metal parts and cast or converted to resin bits.  It had gone to Toad because when Resitech sank, they did so owing Pete Long money for casting that hadn't been done and the TSR2 master was payment.

Some years later, around 1997, Martin Blundel (the other half of Resitech) started Aardvark and released a number of former Resitech kits.  IIRC, these were the Napier Heston Racer in 48th and the Junkers Ju 388L and K conversions.  The one kit he didn't release was the TSR2, mainly because he didn't have the master...

However, back to 1996 and Toad Resins.  Pete Long continued releasing kits but fell in with Dennis Ives of Flying High infamy (Again, my solicitors have advised me not to go into detail here) and Ives did some of his moulding and casting.  Pete Long soon tired of Toad Resins and went back to his first love, music.  Apparently, he's trombone player!  A few years later, 1998, he sold most of the Toad stuff, masters, moulds, any remaining kits and the name to another resin caster called Justin Gorka.

Gorka had an outfit in Wales called Swan Model Engineering and he released a number of the former Toad kits,two of which being the He 277 conversion and the BAC TSR2.  After a time, he changed the company name to Cloud 9 but this disappeared later, leaving angry customers in it's wake.  Legal considerations again preclude me going into much detail.

The remainder of the Toad moulds went to Dennis Ives, who released them under his Final Touch range.

Back to Mr Gorka.  Some eight years or so, he started selling off the Toad moulds piecemeal.  One of the buyers was Glenn Ashley, who released some of the former Toad kits under his Reichkitz label.  Again, this was another flash in the pan and the Toad kits again disappeared.

What's all this to do with the Resitech TSR2? I hear you asking.  Well, I did warn you it was a long and tortuous story!

Back to the late 1990s.  Martin Blundel knew where his TSR2 master was, but Gorka wasn't playing ball and held out for more money.  Rather than cough up, Martin managed to get an original Resitech TSR2 kit and used it as a master, dropping the major components into rubber.  He did have the patterns for the etched brass.

Some years later, Blundel moved and Aardvark were renamed Heritage but the entire company was sold on to it's current owner some years later. 

Heritage will be rereleasing their TSR2 relatively soon and apparently it's had a makeover.

[TsrJoe]

outv curiosity has 'Heritage' full rights to produce the kit or 'half' rights based upon the (historical) 'Resitech/Toad' company? (which if folded in recievership? the masters, ie assets, should have been passed on as collateral as you mentioned with the Toad kit?)
Who has the 'orginal' masters now, surely it would be far better to use these than copying a previously moulded kit (iv noticed some later examples of the 'Heritage' kit show evidence of numerous recastings from previous copies and not from an 'original' piece kept aside for such a purpose which is normal practice)

[The Wooksta!]

The only thing that annoys me is the swear filter because the B'st*rd word is used in it's correct context!

[PR19_Kit]

After reading all that lot, there's a lot to be said for taking up knitting..........  

[Gondor]

I have one of the Toad Resin kits part built. Does anyone want to take it off my hands?

Gondor

[The Wooksta!]

Some years ago, I would have taken your arm off for it but after building 27+ models (possibly more TSR2s than anyone else alive), all based on various incarnation of that kit, I lost interest in building any more TSR2s.

[Devilfish]

I also have a version of this kit (Heritage I think) which survived a house fire!!  Sits rather blackened and battered in my loft now with my 3 Airfix 1/48 versions, awaiting the day......