Hornby and Airfix have announced they are developing a new crowdfunding platform to bring some of the nation’s favourite toys back to shop shelves.
Like standard rewards-based crowdfunding on Indiegogo and Kickstarter, toy fanatics are invited to vote for their most wanted toy by pre-ordering it on the Airfix Kitstarter website. When a model gains enough supporters (and presumably, funds to make it worth Airfix’s while), it wil go into production and will be shipped when ready.
Fans are only charged if a toy meets its target and payment is only taken when it’s ready to be dispatched.
Airfix chief executive Richard Ames said: “This is a really exciting initiative for Airfix. We have a very large back-catalogue of model kits, many that are still remembered fondly by our consumers. We get lots of feedback about which models people would like us to re-introduce.
“Our KitStarter crowdfunding platform will enable Hornby to interact much more closely with our consumers. This will help us gauge demand accurately and respond quickly to their requests. Then we can prioritise which models we re-introduce. We are also confident that KitStarter will help us to reach a new generation of model enthusiasts that we can attract into the hobby.”
Products on offer at the moment include the 1977 Bluetits that is available to back for £20 and the Bullfinches also from 1977 for the same price. More projects will be added in future, including historical figure such as Henry VIII and Oliver Cromwell, the 1949 Ferguson tractor and the World War 11 Spitfire plane which Airfix thinks will be the most popular model available on the crowdfunsing platform.
