Darius at home Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 The latest Hannants newsletter states that they have heard that Heller have gone into bankruptcy. Better get their kits now if you want them. Darius Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Hamster Volant Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 Heller/Joustra's gone into receivership a few weeks ago, and then they have been bought by MAPED, a French manufacturer of school/office stuff. However, 15 out of the 45 employees have been laid off, most of them the experienced ones in the kit injection business. MAPED has kept the previous CEO in place (the one that lead the company successfully to receivership...), and rumours are they are more interested in the Joustra part than the Heller part. Must say some of their recent choices of kits were a bit mixed -nice to have French classics like the Citroen HY or the 4L, also some rally cars; but the Mehari was bugged with mistakes, and they didn't really care about other areas of modelling- Oh well, stocking up while it's possible is probably a good idea, they had some unique models in their range -though they sold lots of moulds to Smer, some to a south american company, and lost some others...- Time will tell if we'd see again Heller rise from its ashes... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ikar Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 I need a couple of their ant models for a project. I'd better get looking. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
habu2 Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 What does this mean for Airfix? Weren't many Heller kits reboxed Airfix molds? (or vice versa?) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Johnopfor Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 What does this mean for Airfix? Weren't many Heller kits reboxed Airfix molds? (or vice versa?) I don't think Airfix will be affected much by Heller's problems. Back when Humbrol had both Airfix & Heller under their control, they did swap some molds, but most of the kits were boxed in France anyway. It appears that when Hornby acquired Airfix in 2008, they did get some of their molds back, but Airfix has focused much of their attention on new mold kits, and replacing old mold kits with new tooling (1/72 Sea King, Jet Provost, B-17). The worst part about Heller hitting the skids is that some of their French aircraft kits will go out of production. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
rob.w Posted July 28, 2016 Share Posted July 28, 2016 To some degree they have no one to blame but themselves. While Heller has had many interesting kits over the decades they have always been very hard to find, at least in my part of North America. The way the model world seems to be operating over the last decade or so if Heller really does disappear someone will pick up the molds. Maybe its time that Round 2 went into the airplane model business with something better then the ancient Lindberg kits. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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