Posted By Dan Greenfield on Mar 23, 2025 | 11 comments

By Anthony Taylor, author of the newly released Aurora Plastic Models Catalogs Volumes 1 and 2…

I’m a sucker for many things and one of them is old-school catalogues for old-school products that don’t exist anymore. Pop-culture historian Anthony Taylor — author of the upcoming, long-awaited illustrated bio of artist George Wilson — clearly feels the same way. His Aurora Plastic Models Catalogs Volumes 1 and 2 — which were just released — collect the full-color sales pubs the defunct company put out from 1960 through 1977.

We asked Anthony to highlight 13 of the grooviest Aurora model kits from the ’60s and ’70s, and here we are. Right on. — Dan

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By ANTHONY TAYLOR

Since childhood I have owned, assembled, painted, and spectacularly destroyed model kits manufactured by the Aurora Model Plastics company of 44 Cherry Valley Way, West Hempstead, N.Y. The venerable company lasted from 1950 to 1977 before closing their doors, and they released the most wonderful kits in the history of the plastic model hobby. Figures of the Universal monsters, DC and Marvel Superheroes, TV and movie cars and vehicles, knights, Musketeers, dinosaurs and cave people… if it was an Aurora, it was guaranteed exciting.

My admiration for the company also includes kudos for their packaging, with box art created by illustrators like James Bama and Mort Künstler, some of the most talented artists in the field. Though the kits inside the box may have been less than accurate to the depictions on the outside, they were always a ball to build, admire, and ultimately destroy with firecrackers in a blaze of glory. What then? Build another — wash, rinse, repeat.

My new books Aurora Plastic Models Catalogs Volumes 1 and 2 aggregate the full-color sales pamphlets the company released from 1960 through 1977, the years they released the models that fans and collectors enjoyed the most. Here’s a rundown on 13 amazing Aurora models you probably remember, or that you need to know about.

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Frankenstein. The Monster that started it all! In 1961, Aurora’s advertising and promotional manager Bill Silverstein witnessed a line of kids wrapped around a city block in New York waiting to see a double feature of Universal’s original Dracula and Frankenstein films. An idea occurred to him; why not make model kits of the monsters? Silverstein tried to convince the company’s product managers for months before they gave in, licensed the monsters, and created tooling for Frankenstein’s creation as a figure kit to show at the next Hobby Industry Association marketplace in Chicago, where retailers ordered products for the upcoming season.

For four days, no one looked twice at the prototype on display. On the last day, a retailer brought his sons to the Aurora booth and they became very excited about the model. A California distributor witnessed this and also placed orders. Aurora entered into the most profitable period of the company’s life — by August of 1964, they had sold almost 8 million monster model kits, and demand was still strong.

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Batman. The Caped Crusader! Embarking on a line of superhero model kits in 1965, Aurora chose Batman at exactly the right time; within a year of the kit’s release, the television series became a massive hit, and Batmania swept the nation. Every kid on the block ponied up 98¢ for the figure of their hero swinging from a tree… that was growing out of a rock, on a base that originally wasn’t wide enough to keep the model from tipping over! The Cherry Valley Way folks retooled the base of the prototype sculpt before release.

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The Addams Family Haunted House. Their place is a museum! Not a great seller when it was released in 1965, the Addams Family House model was chosen by Polar Lights’ Tom Lowe to be the first reissue from the company when he made a deal with toy retailer FAO Schwartz to offer it in their 1995 holiday catalog as an exclusive item priced at $80. It sold out quickly, proving that there was demand for such products. Polar Lights brought more ex-Aurora kits to market and became very successful.

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King Kong’s Thronester. The Eighth Wonder of the World! Aurora was at the center of several pop culture revolutions during the 1960s, including the dawn of the Monster Kids and the proliferation of the Hot Rods. Monster Kids were young fans inspired by the release of the Universal classic horror films to television and the ready availability of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. Hot Rod culture began in the late 1940s but really hit its stride in the late ’50s and into the 1960s. Aurora found an intersection for the pair in their Monster Rods model kits series.

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U.S. Navy Sealab III. Everything’s better, down where it’s wetter! Situated at a depth of 690 feet off the coast of San Clemente, California, Sealab III was the Navy’s final experimental habitat for testing saturation diving procedures and long-term undersea living. The experiment ended in tragedy when aquanaut Barry L. Cannon died while trying to repair a faulty seal on the habitat, and the crew was evacuated. Aurora already had the model in progress and decided to release it, but it was only available for a two-year period and is rare in unbuilt condition. Doll/Hobby GA is reissuing the Sealab III this May.

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Monster Scenes: The Pendulum. Rated X… For Excitement! Aurora’s Monster Scenes series caused quite the stir among middle America’s mothers. Recently acquired by Nabisco — yes, the American snack company with a squeaky clean reputation — the company released kits of torture instruments and half-naked women, and they were aimed at kids! When picketers formed outside Nabisco’s Manhattan headquarters, the jig was up for the likes of The Pendulum, Pain Parlor, and Gruesome Goodies. Aurora pulled the plug and sent their remaining stock to Canada for liquidation.

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Monsters of the Movies: Creature From The Black Lagoon. Centuries of passion pent up in his savage heart! After the success of the original Universal Monsters kits in the 1960s, Aurora decided to leverage their existing license to create additional products for the Monsters of the Movies line, which was sadly short-lived. Designed by comic book artist and Creature fan Dave Cockrum, this kit features a dynamic pose of the gillman swimming, and it’s my personal favorite of all the company’s monster kits.

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Prehistoric Scenes Tyrannosaurus Rex. Just don’t ask him to pass the salt! After the Monster Scenes debacle of 1971, Aurora rebounded with a popular line of models of prehistoric animals and environments called Prehistoric Scenes. Male and female cave dwellers were included, as well as a cave, a tar pit, and various dinosaurs, including this enormous tyrannosaurus rex kit that measured 3 feet long by 18 inches high!

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The Batmobile. Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed! Aurora went all-in on the Batmania craze of 1966, producing kits of many of Batman’s little toys, though none were more popular than his daily ride — the Batmobile. Built by Barris Kustom Industries from the bones of a 1955 Lincoln prototype called the Futura, the Batmobile is the most popular television car of all time, selling millions of kits.

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The Moonbus From 2001: A Space Odyssey. “Open the pod bay doors, HAL.” The world had never seen a film like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and though many people scratched their heads over what the meaning of the story was, everyone loved the spaceships. The Moonbus dispatched Dr. Heywood Floyd and crew from Clavius Moonbase to TMA-1, the location of the excavated alien monolith in the film.

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Lost in Space Giant Cyclops and Space Family Robinson. “Danger, Will Robinson!” Irwin Allen’s second sci-fi television series proved a hit for three seasons on CBS, and spawned a large wave of merchandise from companies like Remco, Azrak-Hamway, and Aurora. Models of the Robot and the Robinsons did so well that the company added parts to its Robinsons vs. the Cyclops kit after its initial production run, making the base higher and adding the family’s Chariot vehicle, which was based on a Morton Thiokol Spryte model Snow Cat used by many ski resorts.

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Madame Tussaud’s Guillotine. Off with their heads! Playing off the popularity of the monster kits, Aurora executives licensed the Madame Tussaud’s name in 1964 for a proposed line of torture devices straight from the venerable London museum’s “Chamber of Horrors.” You’d think they would have remembered the low sales of this kit when spitballing the Monster Scenes line some years later. Tussaud’s pulled their name after the first issue of the model because Aurora released it without their final approval.

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Gigantic Frankenstein. BIG FRANKIE! Brought to Aurora by toy designer Marvin Glass (designer of Rock ’Em, Sock ’Em Robots and Mr. Machine), this was by far the company’s largest monster kit and retailed for a WHOPPING (at the time) $4.98! Glass had pitched it to several toy companies with mechanized action features before taking it to Aurora. Big Frankie stood 19 inches tall and proved unpopular with retailers because of his enormous box size that took up so much shelf space in stores.

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Those are my 13 MOST MEMORABLE AURORA MODEL KITS. What are yours? Let us know in the comments, and look for Aurora Plastic Models Catalogs Volumes 1 and 2 on Amazon!

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MORE

— GOLD KEY’s REMBRANDT: 13 Essential Comic Book Covers by GEORGE WILSON. Click here.

— TOYHEM! Memories: AURORA’s SUPERMAN MODEL, by TOM PEYER. Click here.

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© 2025 Anthony Taylor. Anthony can be reached at ataylor@mindspring.com or GoAnthonyTaylor@gmail.com.