Airfix: the collapsed kit maker rescued by Hornby for £2.6m — still on shelves 20 years on

Airfix, founded in 1939 by Hungarian businessman Nicholas Kove, defined plastic kit modelling for generations of British children — Spitfires, Lancaster bombers and ships to glue and paint. But by 2006 its parent, the Hull-based Humbrol group, had been struggling for years: losses built up, cash flow tightened, and then Heller SA — the French factory that made most of its kits — went into administration too. The supply blockage pushed Humbrol under in August 2006; 31 of 41 staff lost their jobs, and administrators Grant Thornton were appointed.

The administrators called Airfix 'an iconic brand' that was 'capable of onward sale and investment.' In November 2006 Hornby, the Kent-based train-set maker, paid £2.6 million for Airfix and Humbrol. The Airfix and Humbrol brands had combined sales of £6.5 million in 2005, so Hornby bought a famous name in distress, not a going concern: Hornby said it would move distribution, sales and marketing to its own Kent site and outsource manufacturing, while the Hull plant had already closed with the loss of nearly all jobs.

The brand survived the transition. Twenty years on, Airfix is still a Hornby brand: in February 2026 the Guardian described Hornby as selling toy planes and cars 'under the Airfix and Corgi brands' while putting the proceeds of a £20 million Scalextric sale toward its remaining lines. Airfix thus outlived not only Humbrol but also Hornby's own crisis years — the company was taken private by Phoenix Asset Management after 2017 profit warnings, and rode a hobby boom during the Covid pandemic before restructuring again.

An iconic brand bought for £2.6m against £6.5m of 2005 sales — and still selling under Hornby two decades later, alongside Corgi.

The buyer already knew the category. Hornby ran the same retail channel — hobby shops and toy retailers — so Airfix needed no new distribution to be worth more to Hornby than to a liquidator.

Hornby bought the brand, not the factory: manufacturing was outsourced and the dead Hull plant was left behind, keeping the fixed costs of the rescue near zero.

The administrator's 'iconic brand' judgment was shared by the market: generations of buyers gave the name demand that survived its manufacturer's death.

For Hornby the deal was portfolio logic — the same approach it used for Scalextric and later Corgi — so Airfix plugged into an existing brand-management machine.

A collapsed manufacturer can still leave a valuable brand on the table. A scaled-down buyer with working distribution can rescue the name even when the factory is unsalvageable.

Airfix carried on under Hornby while the parent's own fortunes swung: Hornby's 2010s profit warnings ended in a takeover offer from Phoenix Asset Management, and the company later cited a Covid hobby boom. In February 2026 Hornby, by then part of the Castelnau group, sold Scalextric for £20 million to pay down debt and invest in its remaining brands — Airfix and Corgi among them. Nearly two decades after Humbrol's administrators questioned whether the name would survive at all, Airfix kits are still rolling out under a Hornby that makes nothing in Hull, or much anywhere in Britain.