Hawk Model Company

The Hawk Model Company was one of the first American manufacturers of injection-molded plastic model kits.
History.
Hawk Model Airplanes was established in 1928 by brothers Dick (Sr.) and Phil Mates in Chicago, Illinois. Promoted as "America's Oldest Model Company", the company was purchased by the Testors Corporation in 1970. The Hawk Company assets were later acquired by J. Lloyd International, Inc. of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which, in turn, sold them to Round 2 LLC of South Bend, Indiana in 2013.
From its inception in 1928 to the early 1950s the company manufactured a successful line of solid-wood aircraft models, which eventually included injection-molded generic plastic propellers. The Mates brothers exhibited built-up and painted plastic models at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1934. During World War II, Hawk helped to supply plastic identification models for use in military training.
In 1946, Hawk produced one of the first all-plastic model kits, the Curtis R3C-1 racer. Four additional kits (all classic 1930s racers) were added in 1948; the Gee Bee, Howard Ike, Laird Solution and Supermarine S6B. These early kits were molded in acetate plastic, but from 1949 Hawk employed polystyrene in its injection-molding process. The kits were advertised as “1/4 scale”, meaning ¼ inch equals 1 scale foot or 1/48th scale. Additional increasingly sophisticated tooling was developed into the 1960s. By the time of its sale to Testors Corp. in 1970, the company's catalog included a wide range of realistic scale replicas of aircraft, ships, missiles, vehicles and conceptual subjects in 1/48, 1/72, 1/96, 1/144 and smaller scales. Among notable releases:
Many of these original Hawk kits have been reissued periodically using the original molds. They have been reboxed by Testors or its successors and continue to be available.
Weird-ohs.
One of Hawk's best selling kit lines was the "Weird-ohs Car-icky-tures", dragster and hot rod caricatures (along with the related "Frantics", and "Silly Surfers" series), based on concepts and art created by their often-used freelance illustrator Bill Campbell. This model line serve as the inspiration for the 1999-2000 CGI cartoon series Weird-Oh's.
Weird-ohs characters:
Silly Surfers characters:
Frantics (the frappin' family of fidgeting...) characters: