HERE’S A CLOSE LOOK AT MPC, short for the Model Products Corporation, an American manufacturer of plastic scale model kits and promotional models that were especially popular in the 1960s and 1970s.
THE BASSETT-LOWKE BRAND DATES BACK to the late 1890s. So it's appropriate that the Hornby-owned company is now trailblazing a path back to that era with a dedicated range of steampunk-inspired locomotives, rolling stock, and accessories.
THE WORLD CURRENTLY FACES the deadly coronavirus on the rampage. But – and so we can maybe escape some of the gloom and doom – modellers can use some of the anti-virus measures to our advantage. And that includes the all-important isolation from others.
THIS IS THE second tractor kit in Revell’s new 1:24 scale series, this time featuring one of the most popular small tractors of the early 1960s, the D30 from the German manufacturer Deutz.
FOR THOSE WHO don’t know their science-fiction, this kit from Polar Lights represents one of the ‘flying hubcap’ UFOs that featured in a 1959 B-movie called Plan 9 from Outer Space.
LAST YEAR MARKED the 30th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, when Germany united from its Cold War-era ‘East’ and ‘West’ halves. So in 2019 Revell Germany celebrated the event by reissuing a Trabant kit with a large diorama base. This depicts a ‘Trabi’ breaking through the wall, into the West.
DIECAST SCALE MODELS are traditionally a collector's market, rather than one for builders. But there are plenty of times when ready-built models make perfectly good sense.
IF YOU LOOK HARD enough, you can usually find an interesting anniversary. And in 2019, Round 2 used the 65th Anniversary of Godzilla, perhaps the most famous of all movie monsters, to add a creature-feature to its list.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL and we hope 2020 brings you as many models and kits as you might wish for. And if you enter model competitions, well, we hope you win a few prizes!
BEST WISHES TO ALL OUR READERS and have a truly excellent scale time over the festive break. And of course, we also wish you a prosperous and productive 2020.
IT'S ALWAYS GOOD TO SEE A NEW MODEL MAGAZINE, so we are pleased to see the latest from Guideline Publications, the fascinating Fantasy Figures International which is in stores now.
Porsche and Lucasfilm have created a 60-inch long concept spacecraft, the Tri-Wing S-91x Pegasus Starfighter, in time for the launch of the new movie Star Wars Episode VIII: The Rise of Skywalker. The Tri-Wing will be unveiled at the film’s world premiere on 16 December 2019, in Los Angeles, California.
IT WASN'T A TOP SECRET but the fact that old-style rocker, Rod Stewart, was also a model railway enthusiast was probably not that well known, to many of his music fans, at least. But in the scale model world, Rod (‘Sir’ Rod since he was knighted in 2016) is yet another famous face who is a keen rail modeller.
THIS LAYOUT COMBINES traditional model rail construction with a dash of science fiction. The Edwardian sci-fi story War of the Worlds by HG Wells makes for an interesting, and very different, diorama setting.