Random thought: I love Matchbox kits. What's your nostalgic favorite and why?

[proditor]

I've noticed that recently as I was lining up some kits for future projects, I've been grabbing a lot of Matchbox kits when I get the chance.  I was wondering why, as really, they tend to be less accurate, and more "cartoony" for lack of a better word.  Still, they strike a familiar and friendly chord with me.  Part of it is remembering building the bright 3 color kits as a kid, and enjoying the ease with which they usually went together.  Flying around the room, and strafing the family dog.  As I got into ships, I discovered that Matchbox made a bunch of nice cheap kits that could be modded with little work.  Darn near everything had to be glued on, so had a nice flat deck, and you could do whatever you wanted with the superstructure.  Then I quit modelling for a few years.  And then came 9/11.  I was living in NYC at the time, and I was training on-air news talent (reporters, anchors, etc.) and I had just finished with a young financial guy when we turned on the tv and saw the second plane hit.  My guy's day job as he prepared for being a reporter was working in the financial district, specifically at the World Trade Center.  If he hadn't been with me for training, he'd have been there that day.  This shook me up a lot.  We had a few days off of work and I sort of wandered around the city trying to figure out what to do with myself.  There's a hobby shop called Jan's in NYC on the upper east side that remarkably, was open.  I wandered in, and back out with an armload of Matchbox armor kits, and a tube of glue.  Over the next couple of weeks as I got a handle on what had happened and tried to get back to a normal life, Matchbox kits became a way of dealing. 

I started pondering this recently as I completed the long delayed Char Bis-1 and Renault FT17 diorama, and I realized that I flat out love Matchbox kits and consider them to be some of my "best friends". 

So how about you?

[Weaver]

I was keen on wargames at school, so Matchbox armour was a staple. The school club rules were very simplistic and unbalanced, which meant we all had far more Comets than ever made it to Germany in real life in a desperate attempt to allow Allied forced to hold their own against serried ranks of Jagdpanthers... Players on both sides made good use of Wespes and Priests for arty support.

Hell of a story Proditor. I used to be a despatch rider and I did a regular morning job into the middle of Manchester, parking in Parsonage Gardens: a "triangular square" surrounded by glass-fronted office blocks. One day we started a new guy, and he took my Manchester run as an easy introduction. Because he was new and did everything slower, he was still a quarter of a mile away from the drop when the bomb that the IRA had planted the night before went off, turning Parsonage Gardens into a glass-storm. If I'd done the job as usual, I'd have been parked right next to that bomb......

(Ninety minutes later, the other bomb, that the bastards had put right next to the emergency assembly point for the Parsonage Gardens buildings went off... )

The new guy had only just moved back to the UK from Thailand and this was his first day at work, so as you might imagine, he was a bit shaken: "Christ, is it always like this?"

[PR19_Kit]

After building the Frog 1/96 Victor B1, and being frustrated that it wasn't in my preferred 1/72 scale, the advent of the Matchbox Victor was a godsend!

I was into the local model shop so fast they had to withstand my shock-wave as I sprinted through the door on the day the kit was released! Having got the MONSTER box home I was astonished at the huge number of parts to make even the smallest assembly (something to do with the size of M'box's moulding machines I think) but the finished article looked great. Since then I've built another tanker, in Falklands era scheme, and have a B2 with an ex-Airfix Vulcan Blue Steel slung underneath on the way. Mind you, it's been 'on the way' for about 5 years now! 

[ChrisF]

The first kit i ever had (I say had not built because i was too young to be allowed near glue back then) was a horrid kit of a russian flying boat made out of very brittle white plastic... I have no idea what company made them but they did seem to very popular around the junk shops of the time. I think actual model shops wouldnt have used the things for firewood...

It was also quite big, coming in a big long box about the same size and shape that boardgames come in...

[anthonyp]

I only had a few Matchbox kits when I was a youngin' and don't remember many of them, rather I had a ton of MPC kits from my grandpa.  My favorite was their A4D Skyhawk with the ground crew.  Built like half a dozen of them way back when.

[puddingwrestler]

I think I'm to young to have a nostalgic favourite yet...
Most of my first kits were Tamiya, and it's hared to get all nostalgic about them (they're all still available although now some come with PE in the box) because they were so perfect...
I do get a bit nostalgic about Revell's 1970.5 Chevelle kit, it was the second model car I built, and the first I kitbashed. It went together easily and got me interested - then I bought a REvell 57 Chevy with the intention of doing something similar, not knowing about the Car model industries tendency to re-issue kits over and over and over again which use very old toolings... like that one... and then I sort of stopped making car kits for a long time.

[Daryl J.]

Public confession:   In the nearly 40 years of model building some 750 kits, not one ever was Matchbox.     They simply weren't available where I grew up, disappeared by the time I reentered the hobby, and didn't pick up one  on eBay or at a show's vendor area.   

Am I heathen or what!

Monogram's F-100 was my favorite classic kit.   I still like it a lot.  Mom even called me in tears 20 years after moving out of the house to say she'd dropped it off a shelf.


Daryl J.

[Weaver]

Monogram's F-100 was my favorite classic kit.   I still like it a lot.  Mom even called me in tears 20 years after moving out of the house to say she'd dropped it off a shelf.


Daryl J.

Lucky you - my mum used to routinely smash mine and dismiss it with the line "well it's only a bit of plastic..." 


Non-Matchbox-wise, I have great nostalgia for the Airfix Draken (which was built for me by my Dad and so mysteriously never got smashed.... ) and sci-fi kits like the Angel Interceptor, and the Space 1999 Eagle and Hawk. They were ten-a-penny back then and I built, broke and kitbashed loads of them, so it was a profound shock to discover, when I got back into the hobby, that they were now going for stupid collector's prices. I also had the MPC Colonial Viper, Cylon Raider, Buck Rogers Starfighter and Draconian Marauder, all of which I saw gonig for £60 a pop the other day on ebay.... Speaking of Marauders, my Dad and I built the Airfix kit of the B-26 and liked it a lot.

Non-1/72nd-wise, I remember the 1/48th Mongram FW-190 with affection because it was one of the rare kits that I did a half-decent job on.

[puddingwrestler]

Damn you and your Buck Rogers fighter sir! I've ALWAYS wanted one of those, but was born too late!
I guess it's about as close as I get to a grail kit...
Ie: I'd probably not kitbash it. Probably.

Just noticed this is my 1337th post, which makes me Leet.
Dunno if any of you have noticed, but the profile of anyone with 1337 posts actually list thier post number as 'leet'
Gotta love it when geeks are in charge of making things like that.

[philp]

While I am pretty sure that Revell 72nd fighters and bombers were in the majority of my first kits, I also did my share of Monogram, Airfix (and MPC), Frog and Aurora.  Still have fond memories of the Aurora 48th scale Spitfire and Me-109 battling it out on my ceiling.  When I was around 10-11 got into 72nd (76th) armor and did a grundle of Airfix armor.  Liked the Diorama kits they came out with and Hasagawa also.  Was looking through my box of instruction sheets at some of the old kits I did in the day.  All long gone now.

[Silver Fox]

Monogram kits for me... My early kits were all Monogram 1/48 subjects and I learned to build models building them. There was the odd Matchbox kit thrown in... but the models that sparked my interest were the planes I was reading about while first reading about batlles like Midway, Coral Sea and Guadalcanal. Corsairs, Lightnings, Devestators, Dauntless', Wildcats and Hellcats ruled the roost.

[NARSES2]

By the time Matchbox kits came out I was probably getting to the point where wine/women/song took over from modelling. However I do have very fond memories of their Char B and Renault and the 17pdr gun and Morris tractor. Prior to that if you wanted a 17pdr you had the HInchcliffe white metal model (which I had) or you built an early one from the Airfix 25pdr carriage with a scrath barrel.

My real nostalgia trip is Monogram 1/48 aircraft with working parts. They were birthday or Christmas presents from mum and dad whilst growing up. Loved them 

Also have a "bomb" experience...Old Bailey bombing, plus the 7/7 bombing was just up the road from the office

[Radish]

I suppose in times of nostalgia I think back to the Airfix 1/72nd Super Mystere, Frog/Hasegawa F-86F and Matchbox Zero that got me back into modelling after I'd left uni. Prior to that, a favourite was the Merit Bristol Bulldog in 1/48th....aahh...pure joy in silver and with pretty markings.
Early memories include all the Airfix first kits...Spitfire, Gladiator, etc.

My bomb experience was mainly via my dad....he was in the Tavern in the Town in Birmingham the night the IRA decided to blow it up, but as it was really just a meeting place for the guys he was having a Christmas reunion with, they moved an hour before the explosion.

[Howard of Effingham]

must admit that i was brought up on matchbox and airfix kits. at the shuttleworth model
show earlier this year i was glad to avail myself of a matchbox hunter.

never really had an 'got caught up in a bomb explosion' happen to me, but i did have a
very close shave once. some people will remember the ladbroke grove rail disaster a few
years back. a few days before the tragedy, i had a ride from paddington to west drayton
[for TAHS] in the DMU that was involved in the collision. haven't used paddington station
since, its too scary to do so.

[ChrisF]

@Overkiller yeah that looks like it might have been it... Right plane and size of box (Same serial number on the side and everything lol) .. not sure about the artwork but theres prob been a few diff ones...