Thunderbirds Movie Kits

 Thunderbirds the Movie may have been an awful movie and certainly didn't do the franchise any favours, but one thing it did manage to do well is produce some beautiful vehicle designs. If you forget for a moment that the shapes of the Thunderbirds ships that we know and love have been hauled into the real 21st century and have been drastically altered and look upon them as pure sci-fi vehicles, you can safely say they are impressive.

 Besides making toy versions of the craft, Bandai also prepared a number of kit based models, moulded in coloured plastic on a snap-together basis. While simple in construction, needing no glue and little more than a spare pare of hands for the fiddly bits, the kits do make up into rather fine - very toylike - models. Thunderbird 1 is about 15 cm long and has swing wings, variable position engines and removeable landing gear, with undercarriage doors. The clear parts and the colour elements are all cleverly produced on the same sprue, the mouldings of a lot of the parts being very comprehensive and complex, cuts down on the amount of bits needed.

TB1 also comes with a second model of itself, a mini scale model of four pieces reminiscent of the Kelloggs Anderson models of the sixties. This 4cm kit even has its own decals.

Thunderbird 2 comes in a toch smaller at around 12 cm, moulded in red and green and yellow and even at this small size, with clear plastic windows. The model doesn't shirk on detail either, the intakes and landing jets are all well detailed and the twin 'pod' bays are moveable, with the main bay including a ramp and micro model of the new Mole. The legs can be alternated with tiny covers for the holes in the hull, but these are tiny and difficult to fit in.

 Generally, the TB2 is very similar to the Deluxe toy versions that Bandai produced and a cursory glance would mistake it for same.

Thunderbird 3 is a similar length and makes up for its lack of action features by including a Thunderbird 5 stand and a sub-microscopic Thunderbird 4 at just under a centimetre! Im not sure as to the extent of the model range from Bandai as these are the only kits i've come across, but they are well worth looking for as a sci-fi kit as opposed to true Anderson memorabilia.