Category:Monogram

Monogram was founded in Chicago in 1945 by Jack Besser and Bob Reder, who had both previously worked for Comet Kits.

The company initially made balsa-wood kits for building model ships and aircraft, but brought out their Plastikits range as an answer to the plastic kit range launched by Monogram in 1953.

Hot-rods

Although the Monogram range of kits was reasonably diverse, there was a focus on cars, and like Monogram and some other plastic kit makers, they tried to capture the counter-culture element of the car enthusiast community with a range of novelty hot-rod designs, by Darryl Starbird.

Monogram Slot Racers

Like everyone else, they threw themselves into the slot-car boom in the 1960s and (like everyone else) probably got their fingers burned when the slotcar market collapsed, partly due to too many competing systems on the market at the same time.

1968: Mattel

Mattel's acquisition of Monogram in 1968 allowed Mattel to re-use some of the existing Monogram hotrod designs as Hot Wheels racers, and 1968 also saw the hiring of custom car stylist Tom Daniels, who produced a huge range of hot-rod and novelty car designs, which then fed into both the Monogram and Hotwheels ranges.

1986

After Mattel's 1984 initiative to rationalise its range, Monogram was purchased by a private equity firm in 1986, who also bought Mattel's direct competitor Revell the same year, and merged the two companies together to produce Revell-Monogram.

Listings

MONOGRAM MODELS – 1961 Gamages listing

External links

• Monogram (wikipedia)