Tag Archives: Matchbox
Clipped and Thinned: An Oddball Spit
While the Spitfire is generally regarded as one of the most beautiful aircraft of WWII, if not ever, not all versions of this legendary bird looked as good as the others. One of the more oddly-shaped and less “Spitfire-like” of the lot was the LF. XVI. The clipped wings and bubble top combined with the […]
Vintage Wheels Indeed!
Getting into new subjects is one of the most fun parts of modelling. I went from being a “modern jet guy” to a “Gundam guy” and since then have been branching out ever farther. One of the newer types of kit that I’m fascinated with are early cars. Really, anything from a horseless carriage up […]
A Set of Armoured Speedbumps
Despite the general weakness of early WWII German tanks, the Wehrmacht was still able to sweep across Europe in 1939 and 1940. When the invasion of France came, it pitted the nearly training-tank-level German armour against an odd mix of ancient WWI relics and more modern, much heavier tanks. However, bad tactics and the German […]
Sweet (ish) Sixteen
In the annals of aviation history, the Supermarine Spitfire is certainly one of the all-time greatest aircraft ever produced. It constantly evolved from the days before WWII, and naval variants were fighting in the Korean war. It’s not hard to argue that anyone interested in aviation’s history or WWII should pretty much HAVE to have […]
Matchbox’s Whistling Outhouse
With a nickname like that, you know the plane has got to be something special, right? Well, what could be more special that a plane of which there is still, in 2021, no other mainline injected kit than the 1978-vintage Matchbox original? The Supermarine Stranraer was something like a big-brother to the (marginally more famous?) […]
Blasts from the Past
They may not have invented time travel yet, but that didn’t stop me from raiding my local hobby shop near the end of March, 2021, and coming back looking like Marty McFly had been doing the driving! The sheer number of old kits that one of the local shops recently came into was truly prodigious […]
Just Deserts
Navigating the featureless North African desert, deep behind enemy lines, cutoff from supplies and support may not sound like everybody’s dream job. Not surprisingly, there were only a handful of soliders from across the Commonwealth that had what it took to undertake such missions. Those that did were organized into the LRDG – Long Range […]
What Has Four Pounds and Biplanes?
If that sounds like a trick question to you, then you can imagine how I felt! This box-full-o-awesome arrived at my door just a week or so ago from my excellent friend Alan. He said he had some kits he thought I might like, and knowing my penchant for the weirdly awesome, he gathered together […]
Old-School Desert Strikers
Fighting a war is obviously a life-and-death matter. However, doing it in some of the most inhospitable terrain on Earth ratchets the stakes to a whole new level. This is what the British and Commonwealth forces found out when they fought the Italians and Germans in Africa. However, there was a group that took on […]
The Luftwaffe’s Parasolled Workhorse
When it comes to capturing the headlines, it’s usually the fighter planes that get all the glory. Often forgotten are the workaday utility types, going about their often hazardous duties behind the scenes. A perfect example of this is the World War II observation plane. While scouting and spotting are vital to the ground forces’ […]
The Sprue Lagoon 