The 'Old Kit - New Box' thing really does seem to irk a lot of you and I can understand it being a little infuriating. But all the major manufacturers do it and as Eric and Chris pointed out, the information is readily available to find out the origins of a kit (although badging them as 'Classic' or similar might have been a good idea). I personally don't think that many people were caught out by it, maybe a handful of casual buyers or impulse purchases perhaps. But we mustn't loose sight of the fact that not all of these older toolings were unbuildable old clunkers, some were considered to be great kits when first released and are still pretty reasonable by today's standards (depending on personal expectations, to a degree).
Although all manufacturers do it I think what set Airfix apart is that they didn't just shove an old kit into a new box, only the plastic was old. What Aiifix put an awful lot of effort into was completely overhauling and revising everything else in the box. Instruction sheets were updated with colour call-outs added for small parts and internals (that certainly wouldn't have been there back in the day), new colour schemes with (often) a full colour painting guide (and more accurate too) and, of course, as others have mentioned, a brand new and usually excellent decal sheet.
It seems a shame that they put all that effort in to give their oldies a new lease of life and are now progressively removing them all from the catalogue. A real shame.
That is very sad Ratch mate.Ratch wrote:It was like they were trying to disassociate themselves with the Airfix legacy.
I can honestly say that the Red Box Re-releases have made up the overwhelming majority of the models I have built since returning to the hobby a few years ago. I was thrilled to see I could buy all those great kits I remembered from my youth, all thoroughly updated and readily available from most hobby stores. The only time I'd buy pre-owned older kits was if that particular model hadn't had a re-release.
But it looks like those days are coming to an end, and as the newer toolings (which, admittedly, I've done a couple of) generally don't really appeal to me like the classics means that Airfix will no longer be getting any of my money. From now on I'll be spending it with the pre-owned kit dealers instead......
Thanks again everybody,
Regards,
Zee28