[LzyBns]

I asked the Altaya dealer I purchase most of my IXO/Altaya planes thru about his take on ceasing of manufacturing :

wish I had a crystal ball to answer to your question. The facts, as of today, are that Altaya, in France, is extending the "Avions de combat de la 2ème Guerre mondiale" series with ten repaints of original castings. The first (#51) is the Curtiss P-40N Kittyhawk Mk IV in dessert camo. This first repaint is already being sold in France and I will have my first batch available within the next 2-3 weeks.

Strangely enough this repaints are not available in Spain at this time.

I have read some of those wild speculations about IXO making four engined bombers and other stuff. I personally think these rumors are just that. There are some vendors out there that are still advertising IXO releases based on the original Altaya list that was published back in October of 2004, and superseded four times until the final list was published in January of 2006, like they are current future releases.

These pieces of misinformation cause a lot of misplaced expectations on collectors. Models like the Me-163, Nakajima B6N2 Tenzan, Reggiane 2005 Sagittario, Me-108, Me-210/410 and He-112 have been out of Altaya's list for more than a year.

Altaya is a publisher and their target market is for stuff that sells at about 10 Euros ($13.00) so I don't see them selling any four engined bombers in 1/72nd scale! unless they are sold as kits to be acquired over several installments as they do with their radio control kits and large scale models (1/10 scale Bleriot monoplane).

As far as what IXO's plans are, I have no idea. My guess is that they will only market the models that some publishers out of Spain are having produced in China.