So, is the skull on the Estes Red Max is associated with “The Red Barron” WWI fighter ace, as Antares implied (above)?
[I think not.]
All this being said, I did impulsively buy a Der Big Red Max kit when it dipped to $21. It’s sittin’ on the build pile. I may not use the decals/paint scheme. Not because it represents any regime or ideology , but because it looks a bit goofy to me.
Yes, it is - in a sideways sort of way. The history of DRM has been discussed before here and on YORF and apparently it had a connection to the Monogram Red Baron t-bucket hot rod designed by Tom Daniel.
The Red Baron hot rod has it’s own unique history - it was a display scale model, then a production model kit, then a full-size custom car, then it “inspired” a Hot Wheel design (I don’t think Tom Daniel was paid by Mattel for using his design). The Ford Model T based “t-bucket” roadster was well-established in the hot rodding world by the late 1950s much less the late 60s, chromed versions of WWI surplus “Pickelhaube” helmets were part of surfer culture and worn by other folks associated with 60s counterculture (hippies and bikers), plus the still popular in the late 60s service comedy TV show Hogan’s Heroes, add in the popularity of Arte Johnson’s “Wolfgang” character from Laugh-In (verrrry interesting…but schtupid) and you get a climate that produces designs like DRM.
So, is the DRM design some sort of positive depiction of nostalgia for the Third Reich? Not in my opinion, especially if you read through the original instructions for the #KC-2 Citation Der Red Max (
http://www.spacemodeling.org/jimz/estes/kc-2.pdf) - those instructions are pretty much in line with the wry derision shown towards the German characters in Hogan’s Heroes. Depicting formerly existential monsters as mildly comic villains is, in my mind, a healthy cultural reaction from a confident people.
And that’s probably as deep a philosophical discussion of a whimsical model rocket paint scheme as I care to indulge in
