So, I haunt eBay and look for deals on an airframe I might not have, or recently sentenced to the bin-of-plastic-purgatory. I recently picked up a pair of Airfix BF 109s. One vintage Emil, and one newer G-6. Both were about $6 each, including shipping.
The G-6 arrived first, followed a day later by the Emil. Each kit was "new in the factory wrapping" and the vintage one rattled...a lot. Upon opening the boxes, the newer kit was in a nice bag, and safe, while the vintage one looks like it spent the first 15 years of its life as ballast on a paint shaker. There's about 6 or 8 parts left on the tree, the prop is busted, and kit canopy is hosed.
The vintage kit (#02048) was tooled back in 1956 and reboxed throughout the 80s. The kit I have here shows a 1983 copyright on the box, and contains 47 pieces. The newer one (#02029) was an initial release of a new tool, and was made in 2009 and has 41 pieces.
The vintage kit is made out of a light blue plastic that looks and sounds awful. The sprues with the one or two parts hanging on them were warped. I fear getting an aggressive solvent glue near this stuff, as it will likely turn to goop as soon as it touches it. The new tooling is presented in a newer, softer plastic in a grey color.
The vintage kit has raised panel lines, and out-of-scale rivet detail. The new kit has recessed panel lines which are again, out of scale. There is no rivet detail, and a marked lack of much detail at all, really. There is NO cockpit--like none. You glue the pilot into his seat, and that's the interior. At least the older kit has a rudimentary one. The pilots themselves, well here we can see the improvements in both plastic and mold quality/detail. The vintage pilot is pretty sad looking, and has a large sink hole through his middle.
The fit between the two looks to be night and day. I didn't clip the 2009 kit off of the sprue, but the edges are sharp and clean. The vintage kit shows some age in the corners of the molds, losing a lot of the sharp detail. A lot of putty would be required to fix this one, and with the raised details, it's a recipe for the bin-of-plastic-purgatory. They retooled this kit for a reason.
The instructions are spartan, as they don't need much detail. There's only a few parts to the build and both sets show assembly easy enough. I found it amusing that both boxes had the ol' Airfix club advert in them.
The decals and paint schemes are a huge improvement in the new offering. The vintage kit features only one aircraft, and very few decals. The newer one has 3 aircraft to choose from, and there are lots of really nice, detailed decals to add to your plane.
We've come a long way in plastic models. Some of the good ol' days are best remembered, and not relived. In this tale of two Messerschmitts, this is surely the case.
