The companies that design and make plastic model kits would do well to look at Matchbox. They made the best kits ever, in my opinion. The parts were numbered in a logical order. Parts 1 and 2 were the first two parts assembled in the kit and they were together on the sprue.
The box art was always inspiring and had nice little drawings with good information about the prototype.
The box had a window in it so you could see the parts without opening the box. Painting and decal instructions were very good.
Assembly instructions were very detailed and in many languages so you could understand what you were expected to do at each step.
Paints were listed and instructions on how to apply decals, important for young modelers.
The sub-assemblies were clear and easy to follow with written instructions in case the drawing was not enough.
The assembly generally followed the numerical sequence of the parts, and usually they were beside one another on the sprue. I hate having part 63 be the third part to glue on and have it nowhere near part 1.
The models usually had alternate versions and were sturdy. This Brewster Buffalo just joined my collection 20 years ago and has been assembled recently.
4 comments:
Nice bit of nostalgia there. I built a lot of Matchbox (and Airfix) kits as a kid, and i guess the simplicity of the instructions etc. helped keep up my interest.
Great post :)
Dave
They were a lot of fun, thanks for reading Dave.
Bunkermeister
Yep, I dearly miss the old Matchbox kits. Their armour were also quite good following the same practice.
Yes, I loved their armor kits. The Stuart was my favorite.
Bunkermeister
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