Historical Model Kits

Featuring plastic model kits of machinery from before the Industrial Revolution, our selection of historical model kits highlights early advancements in physics and mechanics. Each model kit displays a unique mechanical development in history with cleanly molded parts, easy to follow assembly instructions, and some historical background about the model’s subject. While many of the advancements depicted in these plastic model kits were intended to make life easier for the common man of his time, other historical model kits show early developments in military technology. Whether the piece of equipment was ever actually built or if it remained a brilliant concept on the page of a notebook, each unique historical model listed here played some role in paving the way for modern era machinery.

Straight from Leonardo Da Vinci’s intricately detailed notebooks, each of the Da Vinci model kits gives modelers a peek into the inventor’s imagination. Some of his improvements added convenience to existing things, such as a self-propelled cart or a paddleboat, while others were militaristic in design. To protect the city, Da Vinci sketched out ideas for an improved catapult, armored car, and more. Each of the Da Vinci model kits looks true to its historical era. Predominantly molded in brown, these snap together model kits appear as if they are made out of large pieces of lumber so modelers can identify the challenges early inventors and engineers faced when trying to design new technologies.