With the recent sad passing of David McCallum, I thought a Man From U.N.C.L.E. tribute might be in order. So here is an overview of the two Aurora kits based on the TV series, with a more detailed look at each of the kits to follow.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (United Network Command for Law and Enforcement) TV series ran from 1964-68. It starred Robert Vaughn as American secret agent Napoleon Solo, and British actor David McCallum as his Russian partner Illya Kuryakin; with Leo G. Carroll as their boss Alexander Waverly.
The show was famous for its many secret agent gadgets, and the special guns carried by both U.N.C.L.E. agents, and the minions of their regular adversary Thrush. They even had a special Piranha car, which was kitted by AMT.
The show ran for four seasons, and was such a hit that the Aurora Plastics Corporation decided to produce a pair of kits depicting the lead actors. These were kits 411 and 412, which were only available 1966-68, and were never re-issued.
The Box Art Den has a good collection of Aurora catalogues, but care needs to be taken as some are foreign issues, and the prices can vary.
The two MFU kits were first shown in the 1966 Aurora catalogue, illustrated with simple line drawings, and priced at 98 cents each. The 1967 Edition had cropped versions of the box art, but the price was now $1.00.
The Box Art Den has a Canadian edition of the 1968 catalogue, and the kits were priced at $1.30 in Canada. They were not included in the 1969 catalogue, and that was the end of these kits.
One odd point is that both models are described on the box tops as The Man From U.N.C.L.E., but the actual character names are only mentioned in the fine print underneath.
The kits were sold separately, but the bases were designed to interlock, and show the pair in action, in a typical scene from the TV series. Napoleon Solo is vaulting over a wall, gun in hand; while Illya Kuryakin crouches behind a pillar, pistol at the ready.
The actual figures were fairly simple kits, with the Dimensional Backgrounds adding considerably to the parts count. On the back of the wall sections were copyright notices for both Aurora Plastics Corp. 1966, and M.G.M. Inc, with their copyright date in Roman numerals - MCMLXVI, and the U.N.C.L.E. globe logo.
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The box art for both kits was done by Mort Kunstler, today a renowned artist of historical subjects. He did a number of other box tops for Aurora, covering various kit types.
Aurora Model Kits by Thomas Graham gives the scale of the kits as 1/12th, while Scalemates says 1/8th. Aurora do not give the scale, either on the boxes, or on the instruction sheets, as far as I can see.
Four photographs from Worthpoint.
Paul Adams from New Zealand
I had one of these. The scale was pretty small, certainly nearer 1:12.
ReplyDeleteAmazing! Never being a fan of the show, these kits never caught my eye. Now, of course, they look remarkable, and especially as the two kits together form a diorama, I am sure they are highly collectible. Decent paint job on the one in the photos - painting those figures as a teen in the mid-60s might have been a challenge!
ReplyDeleteGreat intro Paul. Aurora used walls quite a bit in their kits. These UNCLE models are classics. I'll post your next two detailed articles over the next two weeks, thanks for them.
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