Total empathy here. Dave!
Like you I started on kits way, way, back - late fifties. I was about 4 or 5, but my older brother started getting Airfix kits and of, course I had to have the same! However a soon as we found Aurora (or Playcraft as they were here in Scotland in the UK) "1/4 scale", Airfix was forgotten. A spindly silvery grey RE8, whose wings collapsed couldn't compare with a bigger wine red Fokker Triplane - with black wheels and guns and a base, crew figure and nameplate. Be still my beating heart!
The WWI bug was under the skin, never to depart.
For the next few years I foraged all the dept stores, bicycle shops, newsagents and toy shops, finding exotic Pfalz, Fokker, SPAD etc treasures (in poly bags in UK), then glory be, I found the two-seaters in boxes - Halberstadt, Albatros C.III, Breguet....
But through all of this a phantom remained. On the full-colour wrapper on the bagged kits were shown other releases - specifically THE GOTHA, (and also, another Aurora speciality - The Gold Knight, in the figures series)
These were dreamt of but never seen. On holidays I scoured the towns of England but to no avail.
THE GOTHA was a mythic beast, comparable to our beloved Loch Ness Monster.
Years passed, models gave way to girls, school gave way to University and I got serious about a wee Hebridean lassie that I'd met on a holiday job up in the islands, who came down to live with her sister in Glasgow - so I could get the train through from Edinburgh to be together at weekends. (We're mid 1970s by now.)
The point of all this?
One day I got off train in Glasgow and walked into Woolworths in Argyll Street and there in front of me was a large display overflowing with K&B re-releases of the old Aurora quarter-scale kits. All at 99p! Sopwith Triplanes, Fokker E.Vs, Breguets - and - and GOTHAS!!!! 99p!!!
I hadn't made a model in years but I bought about a dozen, including 3 x Gothas. (in the lovely dark blue plastic peculiar to the KB issue.) Joni wondered why I arrived at her flat with a huge shopping bag, which I was more interested in getting into than her clothing!. Next day I went back and bought some more!
I made the Gotha at my uni flat, (hand painting hex lozenge with Humbrol 'Authentic colours, Napoleonic range')
Still have a photo of that, my modelling renaissance, although sadly no longer the kit (see below)
Many years later (late 1990s) I bought all the Aurora range (cheap as chips back then) on the new-fangled eBay platform - and converted a few into decent replicas. That's when I found the Gotha of course really should be in the same wine red plastic as that original Fokker Triplane all those years ago.
Sorry for the ramble, but your story, Dave, struck a hugely resounding chord here. I hope your Gotha still has that fabulous Aurora smell when you open the box! Open box often, smell parts and fondle plastic, then guiltily put back in hiding place until next time!
Sandy
PS As mentioned above I also liked the Aurora Knights but could never find the fable GOLD KNIGHT OF NICE. Recently, only a few years ago, I saw some Revell (Germany) re-issues of the Knights - with the Gold guy, at the time, only 28GBP (Now it is much dearer I fear.) Anyway like your Gotha I had to fulfill the childhood itch and now they all sit on a shelf in the cabinet!)