HOW AIRFIX GOT ITS CUSTOM CARS  by Graham Westoll

Between 1975 and 1980 I had the privilege of being the Product Manager for the Arts and Crafts Range at Airfix Kits and Games. In 1978 the kits development department, run by Jack Armitage, came to my department with a request for some ‘creative’ help. Jack's team had been reviewing redundant moulding tools including the Series 3 range of Modern Cars. These tools were sitting in oil baths awaiting disposal, probably to be melted down for scrap.

A suggestion had come up that there might be a way to stretch the production life of the car kits tools, before the axe was dropped, by making some of them more ‘up-to-date’. It was the end of the ‘wacky’ 70s so it was decided to develop a range of Customized Streetcars (all the rage at that time).

The idea was great and I was happy to provide the creative input to the project BUT it came with three very tight constraints!

Firstly, maximum use should be made of the existing tools, preferably only needing the tamping of unneeded parts.
Secondly, that any new tooling should be minimal and work across all re-launched kits.
Thirdly and most importantly that there should be a credibility about the completed kits (unlike those available in the US market) to reflect Airfix’s reputation for reality and accuracy - quite a trio of targets to meet!

Stage one was to make up all the selected kits and look at them with the same eyes that a car customizer would look at the real thing. After a careful search suitable subjects were chosen i.e. cars that might still be on the road and typical subjects for being given a ‘street cred’ treatment. In view of the need to keep new tooling costs to minimum, I developed common parts which would none-the-less be appropriate to the individual character to each vehicle. Wheels, suspension struts, engine blocks, blower pipes and air scoops etc. were the obvious places to start.

Whilst progressing with this, I felt the best way to make each car truly unique was through the personality of its bodywork art. Much brainstorming took place and a load of concept drawings were produced. Suffice to say some of these reflected the fact that I was being asked to let my imagination run free and quite a few of these ideas were just too wild to submit to the management. As the ideas flowed Kracle Kat, Dragonslayer (later called Kansas Kruiser ) Night Prowler and several others, including an American Civil War themed Vauxhall estate named Rebel Rouser, a Ford Escort called Marilyn and a Sunbeam Rapier christened Death Dealer were devised. The last two never went from the concept stage as they were thought to be a bit too strong for the market at that time!
Having arrived at a selection of concepts that received approval from the management as being manufacturable and marketable I set about giving life to these paper concepts.

With each car selected, I tried to reflect the type of customization that a typical streetcar fan might apply to a real life vehicle. The first of these was the Ford Zephyr which became Night Prowler. As the famous star of the Z cars police series on BBC TV it was perfect to be turned into a caricature of an American black and white cop cruiser. On the bonnet and the doors I put a version of a classic American police shield with the motto ‘NO JUSTICE -JUST US’. To produce the prototypes, I used various methods and tricks to simulate the new components for these kits and hand applied decorations to represent the proposed decals for the final production items.

After final approval of the new models, Jack's team set about designing the most cost-effective, multi-usage additional parts tooling and I sat down to produce the artwork for the decals. These were the days before computer graphics, so reproducing the decal artworks at its final size would have involved very expensive photographic techniques. The solution? I painted each set of artworks at the actual size they were going to be printed! Complete with a set of very fine sable brushes and a desk mounted magnifying glass the job was done over several weeks – probably the reason I now wear glasses!

Finally the range went to market and all indications were that they were well received, albeit by a rather niche market. But the minimal painting requirements and decals that provided most of the character to each kit this meant that the finished job needed only limited skills to achieve a really good result. I like to think this range went in some way to point the way to a future for model making that could be fun and easy for all – this was later reflected by the Matchbox range of kits.

CLOSING THOUGHTS
Working for Airfix was one of the best times of my life – what could be better than being paid to spend your days designing and playing with toys and kits!


by Graham Westoll