Aurora Model Kits

The Big Glue

Aurora Model Kits
with Polar Lights, 
Moebius, Atlantis
By Thomas Graham
3rd Edition
Schiffer Publishing Ltd
ISBN 9780764352836

Subtitled with Polar Lights, Moebius, Atlantis... Aurora Model Kits is a wonderful tome which gives a complete history of the famous, American-based modelling company. Now, I never had any Aurora model kits when I was a young ‘un (or so I thought until I read this book... more on that in a little while). The company were, however, the stuff of imagination of even us UK based youngsters, because of the adverts that came up on the back of various American comics of the 1960s and 70s and also, of course, because of the many pop culture references to the kits they were known for, especially their famous models based on various Universal Monsters. 

Now, I never had any of their Universal Monsters (which I even have captured, in somewhat badly printed monotone likenesses, on an extremely limited set of trading cards based on them) and I always assumed that this was because the models never made it over to these shores but, since my mind was thrown into doubt about that (again, I’ll get there in a little while), I’m guessing my parents just didn’t want me to have them after all the furore and fall out of scaring all the other infant school kiddies with my drawings of dancing skeletons. So this book is very much, for me, scratching an itch of something I never got to own.

And it’s a truly fantastic, coffee table book which is unbelievable value for money considering the production values on the thing... not to mention the many beautiful full colour photos of, not just the various kits themselves but also prototypes of models that never made it onto the production line. 

Starting out in a garage in Brooklyn, the company had a fairly brief but lucrative run, lasting from 1950 to only 1977, when the writing was definitely on the wall as the people who took over the company obviously had no idea, it seems to me, as to what they were doing. They were a plastics company who converted the big failure of their plastic coat hanger products into a huge, overnight success. When the inadequate coat hangers left them with no more orders and a surplus of stock, one of the employees realised that you could make a toy bow and arrow out of the hangers, which sold by the bucket load. Then they went into their first model kits, starting off with two knock offs of another company’s kits.

As the book goes on, we get a complete history of the company, some nice stories about the various partners who ran the show (including the clashing egos and how that also contributed to the creative mojo of the products) and also some stuff about the various box artists whose powerful paintings of planes, automobiles and tanks etc graced the covers of the kit boxes. As well as an insight into the often unsuccessful attempts to infiltrate the general toys market (while the ‘hobby’ line of kits was often going very strongly... as were their slot car racing toys, which are mentioned often but not really covered within the scope of this book). 

The book also covers things like examining the pros and cons of different metals for the molds and also how various re-released models might sometimes be tied in to a current movie title and promoted as such, like their Viking Long Shipbeing resurrected and promoted when the Kirk Douglas/Tony Curtis movie The Vikings was released into cinemas. 

And, of course, it gets into their lucrative figure kit models and the success of things like their Universal Monsters(which absolutely nobody at the company believed in and of which a small production run was initially made to appease one of the partners... for the full and satisfying story, read the book). It also talks about the golden age of modelling which, for example, accounted for nationwide sales of model kits to the tune of $224 million by 1967. It also tells of the demise of the company and the ‘hobby industry’ in America, as children chose to spend thier time playing video games when they were released into the wild, rather than sticking small pieces of plastic to each other. 

A highlight of the book, for me, was the slight memory jog when I found, I did indeed own an Aurora kit as a kid after all. That wonderful, intricate and endlessly fascinating model of Spider-Man perched on a wooden railing and webbing a floored Kraven turns out to have been an Aurora kit. And, of course, I also remember seeing the Mr. Spock VS an alien snake monster thingy on shelves in toy shops when I was a youngster (always wanted to build that one). 

The book also covers the resurrection and re-issues (and marked improvements) of many of the Aurora line models in recent decades, by companies such as those mentioned on the cover of the book... Polar Lights, Moebius and Atlantis. And finishes it all up with an “Illustrated Directory of Aurora Plastic Kits” totalling nearly one hundred pages in it’s own right. 

And it’s a really wonderful story of a once great company... not to mention endlessly illuminating and, of course, entertaining by allowing the reader to wallow in the nostalgia of days long gone by. Of the book I have only two criticisms... 

Much is made of the various instruction booklets to the kits but none are pictured here. Secondly... the photos in the directory section could have done with being a lot larger (I wouldn’t have minded wading through another hundred or more pages if the pictures would have been friendlier to my eyesight, for sure). But, yeah, these are minor criticisms and I have to say I would hands down recommend Aurora Model Kits with Polar Lights, Moebius, Atlantis to anybody who remembers such plastic delights from their youth. I absolutely loved this book and it looks really beautiful, with some nice spot varnishing on both outer covers. Definitely a necessary purchase for all you kit-heads out there, I would say.