Tekstvak: In all the books that are written there is very little mentioned about what happened outside the US and Canada .In Europe sales volume was lower as distribution channels were mainly hobbyshops and product was looked at as very American.Our distributors were always complaining about the lack of european models.For example the Aurora games line was an imposseble sale in Europe. However starting 1975, a significant part of the product development for model motoring took place in Europe. Richard Wadsworth,who came from Scalectrix,was one the most creative  powers behind it. As VP for International sales he developed several low cost promotional programs, such.as the sponsering of the alternative Formula one racing. This  was  necessary to keep our image as the closest thing to real racing.    Exciting races on seven uk circuits and two on the continent with active support of the local stores and distributors and only at  a fraction of the cost of sponsering Mario Andretti and James Hunt.    Several models of the cars that participated in this championship have been entered to the Aurora product line(essex lotus, madom, polifac ) the aurora maclaren-f-1 car is a result of these races, excellent rework of existing f-1 bodies was done by Grant Halverson .Very little of these models were sold in the US. The box tops were also very different from the US, we developed more creative artwork, as we had almost no tv-commercial time to support our sales. Some of the box lids like the stop-police and the 24-hours flamethrower sets are pieces of art.  The car packaging was not in blisters, but in plastic transparent boxes. I am pleased to see on the internet more cars in boxes as on blisters on the collectors pages. Another element is that the US did not create enough new items, while  European hobby shops needed at least six new cars each year. One way to do that was to use excisting carbodies and redesign these into new models, such as the Alitalia capri and the Monza AFX. ` We tried to get the maximum out of our investment in body tools. A good example is the team car labels concept, that worked very well in many European countries. In the last two years when there was very little money for  new tooling, we tried to make advantage of existing tooling of other European car and train manufacturers. In the trucking sets, we used the bridge and containers from Faller and the container terminal was from Lima.We designed an Aurora-fire truck with the help of Wigard, unfortunately it never made it to sales.   Tekstvak: The History of Aurora AFX in Europe By Albert Driessen Former Managing Director of Aurora Products Europe Nijkerk, Holland

Dutch AFX Racing Center

 

 Han van den Berg

Albert Driessen

 

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