Monster Model Kits

Monster-mania gripped America in the Sixties: There were monster movie marathons on TV; monster magazines like Famous Monsters and Monster World, and (to the consternation of parents everywhere) monster model kits.

Made of cheap plastic and packaged in garishly-illustrated boxes, these kits represented a multiple menace of expense, ghoulish imagery and all that potent, brain-frying adhesive required to stick them together (not to mention the way the finished products attracted dust like a magnet!).

No outfit could compete with the Aurora Plastics Company, whose inventory included classic horrors like The Wolfman and Mr Hyde, TV favourites The Addams Family and The Munsters, and in a glorious hybrid, hot-rodding monsters like Dracula's Dragster and The Mummy's Chariot.

Aurora closed its doors in 1977 and the kits became the obsessive focus of collectors, with rare examples going for over $1,000.

In recent years, the Indiana (US) based company Polar Lights have re-issued Aurora's prized line-up, complete with reproductions of the original box artwork.