James May "Toy Stories" Spitfire

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Aug 25, 2009
Tuesday 27th Oct BBC2 8pm James May's "Toy Stories" kicks off with building a full sized Spitfire Airfix style, here's a link to Gateguards who are the company behind the manufacture of the Spit, look half way down this link Flickr: Gateguards' Photostream

Also in the link some replica P51 Mustang's can be seen which are for a forthcoming Gerorge Lucas film about Tuskegee airmen.
 
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Interesting stuff, thanks for the link. They certainly look realistic, and the George Lucas replicas look good up close too. Roman (Seesul) recently posted some pics of the film being shot on location, not far from him, in the Czech Republic.
 
Watched the show, and it was very good. May got to fly in, and fly, Caroline Grace's Spit MkIX, lucky bar steward!! Well worth seeing if you can, as James May got the company to actually make a 1:1 kit, not their usual, fully braced, strong GF replicas.
 
Nipped into my local Modelzone for some paints yestreday, was talking to the manager. I asked him if the May show had influenced their sales in any way, he said they had done four months' sales of model kits in a week, and that Spitfires in particular are walking off the shelves (or should that be flying :rolleyes:)
 
That's bl**dy marvellous news! If sales go up, especially from younger modellers and/or newcomers to the hobby, it'll be a great boost not only for the UK market, but it'll have a knock-on effect elsewhere too. Which could mean more new kits etc.
The owner of my local model shop has been seeing an upturn in kit sales over the past few months too, with 'new' customers coming into the shop. She told me that the feeling among the importers, and manufacturers at the last Trade Fair (I think in Stuttgart) was that if sales continue to increase as they have, then some planned releases which have been held back will go ahead earlier than last planned.
Thank you James May, it seems your wish may be starting to come true!
 
Ah Mr May is personal favourite of mine. Australian tv haven't picked up this series yet, no doubt we will eventually....but its really pleasing to hear sales are up!
 
What's interesting (and heartening) is that he said it wasn't just the middle-agers-revisiting-childhood types (like me), but a lot of dads and lads coming in. This of course is a "high street" (or in this case shopping mall) chain, but I guess there would be efefcts throughout the trade. Good stuff. The more money comes into the manufacturing base, the more they have to invest in new products, that's my logic anyway.

Here's a good one: it was my son's friend's birthday recently, he had seen my Spitfires and wanted to have a go at a kit, so we bought him the Airfix Red Arrow (Gnat) kit with the paints and glue. Saw him the other day and asked if he had done the kit yet. His dad had hijacked it. :rolleyes::lol:
 

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