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I started modelling in the late 60's, with Airfix, Frog and Heller "Musée" kits, all in 1/72. Then came Matchbox, with their fast-paced release of 1/72 kits, molded in garish colors, and still remembered today for their famous "trenches" recessed panel lines. Their range was not only wide, it was full of original subjects, and it was available through a wide array of stores. The tobacconist near where my parents lived soon received regular visits from me, to buy the last Matchbox kit. With my modelling buddies of the Geneva and Savoie area, we have a yearly "challenge" for fun, to be completed for the last meeting of the year, before Christmas. This time, one of us had the opportunity to buy from a retiring gentleman, at a good price, a wide collection of Matchbox kits, some of them in their original boxes of the early 70s. Thus was born the "Matchbox challenge" : to build an OOB 1/72 Matchbox kit of our choice, using what we know today, but without major modifications. I could not resist the nostalgia bout, and the idea of building an OOB kit without any self-imposed pressure, seemed a good way to boost the modelling mojo. I chose three kits : the Hawker Fury (PK1, the first ever Matchbox kit), the Boeing P-12E (PK3, their third kit) and finally the strange looking Vickers Wellesley. The Fury and P-2E were in their original 1972 box. For technical reasons, as we changed the restaurant where our monthly gatherings take place, we decided not to bring our kits of the Matchbox challenge for the Christmas diner, so this will be at the end of this month, and this gave me the extra hours to finish the pesky rigging. I focused on building the Boeing P-12E (you can't get enough yellow wings !). It was actually (as the Fury btw) a nice little kit, with good fitting, fine details and fairly thin trailing edges. The panel lines were fine raised ones. The kit still holds its own some 43 years afetr its first release compared to some modern releases. I just detailed the cockpit, by adding a dashboard, a joystick, a facsimile of the gun-breeches and the tubular structure holding the IP and guns, and finally refining the seat. all the other parts as OOB. I rigged it (aaaargh !) using Uschi's "standard" elastic rigging line. This was the most difficult part of the build : these wires are really small ! I chose one of the in-box schemes, a P-12E of the 27th Pursuit squadron, 1st Pursuit Group, in 1935. One pic I had showed it had a tail skid rather than the kit-supplied tail-wheel, so this one was done with three small pieces of 0,5 mm plastic rod. The decals are from the box. They were a bit old, and by precaution, I added a layer of Microscale decal liquid film on top to keep them together. This did not prevent the underwing "U.S. Army" logo to disintegrate somewhat, but I managed to bring the pieces together. Not sure about the density of the white in the stars and rudder-bars, I masked the white primer to have white disks under the forthcoming decals. It was effective. Et voilà ! A good fun project, that did me a lot of good, first because of the nostalgic content and second by the benefit of stress-free OOB build. Hope you like it. Hubert [/url]