The Little Red Tractor

Eighteen months ago blog reader Mike Burrows sent in some fab images of the TV21 origins of several Spacex toys. This included the T5 Tractor as follows:  "In issue 87 [of TV21 17th September 1966], A piece of artwork, drawn by Eric Eden shows Tractor T-5 pulling a Viking long boat.( Although, to be fair Eric may have been inspired by Eddie Houseman's tractor in the Thunderbirds episode 'End Of The Road' )."

I remembered Mike's reference to Thunderbirds' 'End of the Road', first aired in the UK on the 25th November 1965 and thought I'd track it down on YouTube. See for yourself, are they the same vehicle? -

This jogged my memory too. Konami and Hot Wheels/ Bandai [coutesy of Fab Gear USA] manufactured red and blue die-cast variants of the 'Eddie Houseman' vehicle. See below - second to left and right. Could these be classed as modern equivalents of the T5 Tractor [year of manufacture?]

In fact could these Hot Wheels [Chara Wheels] 'T5's' be the most recent of all 'SWORD' toys, beating the Aoshima Die-Cast Zero-X, UFO Moonbase and Space Voyagers Dyna Soar?