It's partwork season again and the exciting modelling one this year appears to be Build a Spitfire.
In 125 weeks, the keen collector will create a 1/12th scale model of the most iconic World War 2 fighter to take to the air. With a wingspan of nearly a metre, this is going to be quite some model. It has to be, you are looking at 2 years and £750 quid.
Normally, I'm a keen defender of the partwork. The money goes into high quality instructions and often, surprisingly detailed models. My Dad is building the Bismark and the end result will one day be of a quality to rival the very best hand built models and put most kit built ones in the shade. UK modellers howl about the cost but spread over the period, it's not too bad if you compare it to smoking or serious drinking.
This one though, well I don't see where the 125 parts come from. Some issues will have to contain seriously tiny amounts of woodwork or single metal plates. Maybe there is a lot of hidden internal detail but I can't see the appeal of paying for that. You don't even get a pilot figure. Even the stand is an extra !
At the end of the series, what you have is a very large, static (OK, the prop goes around) model of an aeroplane. Is that nicer than the 1/24th Airfix version at under 50 quid ? How many people would find the smaller size a lot easier to display ? Quite a lot I expect.
Build the Spitfire website
3 comments:
Sorry but at this scale you better off going to model zone and buying the park fly spitfire and teaching yourself to fly !! you would get at least 5-6 complete right offs and and a few hanger queens for the price of something you would find hard to display properly on the average family sideboard.
Good point. You could even buy and bounce a few Park Fly planes AND have the largest scale Airfix model for the sideboard. The flying ones are a bit basic after all.
This way you get a lot more fun for a lot less cash.
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