Verlinden has closed down!

[Madelf75]

Rest In Peace Verlinden and all the modelers that came before us

[Jasta 14 addict]

 

 

British Leyland - for it was they who made the likes of the Mini, Maestro, Montego & other absolutely crap cars

My father drove also the Maxi and the Allegro, indeed crap car's.

 

Sorry guy's, back on topic now

 

I still find it a strange way of ending things, whole models and diorama's that are trow away, mold's, Masters, and then the photo's on Facebook, strange if you ask me.

 

Greetz

 

Danny

[Jasta 14 addict]

 

 

I would bet money that everyone posting about how "sad" this is, can count on one hand how many Verlinden products they have bought in the past several years.

For me, many more then one hand for sure. Most of them where figures 1/35 in my day's when i also builded armor subjects. His armor related figure set's where interesting, also the Vietnam related figure set's where for year's the only game in town, and they where not bad at all. When i quit with armor models, i didn't sold them, but gave them to my brother in law because he is still an armor modeler.

 

Greetz

 

Danny

[eoyguy]

I'm a large scale figure modeler, and while they  no longer have the best stuff on the market (understatement) they do have some useful stuff. Its likely they will be available via e-bay for the foreseeable future, but I have already noticed that one of the big sellers of Verlinden figs on e-bay has raised their prices.

Edited September 17, 2016 by eoyguy

[vince14]

Verlinden were great - in the same way that my first Mini that I bought 30 years ago was great. The new Mini we recently bought made my realise that the original Mini was not, in fact, the utterly fantastic car I thought it was. It was a glorified rollerskate. The heating controls had 2 settings - on & off. The only thing electrically powered was the cigarette lighter. The chances of surviving a collision were akin to free fall parachuting without the parachute. There was no 5th gear, so motorway driving was completely deafening. 

 

British Leyland - for it was they who made the likes of the Mini, Maestro, Montego & other absolutely crap cars, at least during the rare times they were not on strike -  had to be shut down, as the paying public deserved far better. Competition leaves only the fittest to survive.

 

Verlinden have gone the same way. Equally, not many tears will be shed.

To be fair the Mini - like the VW Beetle - was designed to be cheap, so it could bring affordable motoring to a new generation. So to call it crap is a little bit unfair.

 

The Maestro was a steaming pile, though.

[Rick Griewski]

An act of humanity, to stop poor, inexperienced modellers in the future accidently buying something & expecting it to actually fit.

 

 

Just a plain old temper tantrum?

 

Rick

[Artful69]

To be fair the Mini - like the VW Beetle - was designed to be cheap, so it could bring affordable motoring to a new generation. 

 

 

... It was also the first "hot hatch" (think Cooper S) ... although not technically a hatch. I must of owned 15 very different cars in my life (big, small, 4wd's, sport and luxury).

Apart from my current Ford Fiesta ST, the Morris Mini was the best fun I've ever had on four wheels.

The Gilligans Island of vehicles - No stereo, no aircon, no sports seats ... not a single luxury! ... windows that slide, not wind!

 

Otherwise it was the best balanced point-to-point performer I'd seen at the time - with a wheel on each corner and 1.5 turns on the steering wheel lock-to-lock, a massive power-to-weight ratio with a 1.3L twin carb in a go-cart like chassis. Brakes were good too - small front wheel discs slowed it down the way Brembos stop most performance cars now.

Acceleration, deceleration and cornering were a blast! ... And the smile it put on my face while doing it - priceless!

 

Dean is absolutely right though - Leyland bought the rights and proceeded to screw up the brand. Rover pointed it back in the right direction - slightly ... but it took BMW to reignite the legend.

They did well ... added safety, mod con's and luxury into the mix while keeping some decent performance in the package.

The problem is - it's not really a 'Mini' any more. Sure, they've retained some of the old cars charms ... but there are much smaller and better pocket rockets out there, for much cheaper outlay - My Fiesta being one such example.

 

Back on topic - I'd heard of Verlinden sometime after I got back into modelling about 10 years back ... but I've never even looked at one of their products!

 

Rog

Edited September 18, 2016 by Artful69

[Pascal]

To be honest I'm puzzled by some of the comments in this topic.

 

Francois Verlinden is one of THE founding fathers of modelling as we know it today.

 

He was the FIRST that produced things that we take for granted these days, but HE did it in the 1970's.

 

Back then there was no internet, modelling magazines were mostly black and white, and aftermarket products were rare. Every town had at least 1 toy store where you could buy kits and paint. The few aftermarket producers that existed had a product list (not a single picture on them) that you had to order by mail. Orders were done by mail or by phone.

 

Then came along Francois...

 

He produced resin products, PE and books. But most important, his products were sold in stores. I remember that you had to pre-order his catalogue (with plenty of pictures in it) in a local toy store, because they always sold out very fast.

 

His books are still very good, and that 30 to 40 years AFTER they were released. The "Lock on" series, "Verlinden's showcase", "On plastic wings" - to name a few - are still very nice books.

 

His magazine was one of the first in the world that had color pictures front to back (even Tamiya magazine didn't do that !).

 

As a modeller he was one of the first true masters. He did something that's very rare today : he took a cheap kit and turned it into a beautiful model. Nobody cared if some of the kit dimensions were off, nobody cared if there were rivets on places that were not on the 1/1 model. The end result was what mattered.

 

In the 70's and 80's it was all about HOW the finished product looked. You could win the "best of show" price at a modelling convention with a beautifully build and painted 1/72 airfix kit that you bought for 3 dollars.

 

I remember very clearly all the (first release) 1/35 Tamiya Tiger I's on the modelling contest table, but I never heard anyone complaining about the way Tamiya made the road wheels (a single thick weel was used to make it look like two wheels). They were fair kits, but the modellers made them into beautiful finished models.

 

Francois Verlinden started making resin and PE products and that was a life changer at a time when scratchbuilding was about the only way to enhance a kit.

 

His detail sets required some work to make them fit to the kits, but I was a lot faster then scratchbuilding. And boy did they make those kits look good !

 

In the mid 80's and nineties you could walk into a modelling store and the shelves that had Verlinden products were the same size of those that held all the products of brands like Airfix. They had that many products !

 

I think that his success back then was so great that he got in over his head. Magazines, books, resin sets, PE sets,... way to much for a small belgian company.

 

The move to the US was the right choice but somehow the company never had the success it once had.

 

 

And now it's gone, gone for good. Very sad news. Without Francois Verlinden our hobby would be very different today, there wouldn't be companies like Eduard.

 

We've lost one of the pioneers in aftermarket products, one of the pioneers in modelling magazines.

 

Thank you Verlinden products for 40 years of modelling marvels.

Edited September 18, 2016 by Pascal

[richdlc]

a sad day - Verlinden really turned me on to super detailing and aftermarket, not to mention dioramas and weathering. But like others said, I don't think their stuff has been relevant (or good) for many years now...............

 

so thanks Verlinden, but the time is right to move on

[Zero77]

I just spoke to the owners wife and they have destroyed all of the stock they had left so no one bought them out.  They are no more.

 

 

Why destroying the stock? It's like throwing $ to the bin.

[DeanKB]

... It was also the first "hot hatch" (think Cooper S) ... although not technically a hatch. I must of owned 15 very different cars in my life (big, small, 4wd's, sport and luxury).

Apart from my current Ford Fiesta ST, the Morris Mini was the best fun I've ever had on four wheels.

The Gilligans Island of vehicles - No stereo, no aircon, no sports seats ... not a single luxury! ... windows that slide, not wind!

 

Otherwise it was the best balanced point-to-point performer I'd seen at the time - with a wheel on each corner and 1.5 turns on the steering wheel lock-to-lock, a massive power-to-weight ratio with a 1.3L twin carb in a go-cart like chassis. Brakes were good too - small front wheel discs slowed it down the way Brembos stop most performance cars now.

Acceleration, deceleration and cornering were a blast! ... And the smile it put on my face while doing it - priceless!

 

Dean is absolutely right though - Leyland bought the rights and proceeded to screw up the brand. Rover pointed it back in the right direction - slightly ... but it took BMW to reignite the legend.

They did well ... added safety, mod con's and luxury into the mix while keeping some decent performance in the package.

The problem is - it's not really a 'Mini' any more. Sure, they've retained some of the old cars charms ... but there are much smaller and better pocket rockets out there, for much cheaper outlay - My Fiesta being one such example.

 

Back on topic - I'd heard of Verlinden sometime after I got back into modelling about 10 years back ... but I've never even looked at one of their products!

 

Rog

 

My wife has a Mini Countryman. It's not mini! Five doors, plenty of room in the back & very fast, but more like a small family car than anything else. Two litre diesel & auto box makes it great fun.

 

Very odd that Verlinden have destroyed all stock & moulds. Makes no sense whatsoever - I suspect there is more to this than meets the eye perhaps?

[Hubert Boillot]

Pascal,

 

As usual there are two sides to the coin. Yes, François Verlinden brought a lot of changes to the modelling industry, and his work and publications were very inspirational, including for me, who read avidly his various modelling books and used extensively his walk-arounds.

 

On the other side, the sets, not cheap by 80's standards (and my standards have also evolved there: what was expensive in the 80s is nowadays more "acceptable") did not fit at all the kits they were designed for. And what is worse is that the pic on the box made it look like fitting the Verlinden AM set would be a breeze: clearly misleading.

 

I have a lot of respect for François Verlinden as a modeller, less so for a company that made items that proved deceptive in the end. The same can be said of some Czech companies of today, btw.

 

Hubert

Edited September 18, 2016 by MostlyRacers

[Martinnfb]

I second that

[Winnie]

I get closing up shop, but I don't get destroying the models, and all the masters... 

 

I too got my first dablings into "Superdetailing" with Verlinden, and their figures etc. 

 

Sad that they are gone, but as have been said, they perhaps didn't follow with the times, thus couldn't keep up...

[LSP_Mike]

Maybe Senor Verlinden just had enough, and wants out. He can re-do any of the masters he wants.

 Still, the 1/15th Pz IV diorama looked pretty cool.