Thunderbirds has a lot to answer for.Besides having a distinct formative influence on my childhood years and also on my inherent sense of design and aesthetics, it also spawned a million imitators of the core vehicles. The essentially unique look of each of the five main craft and the way that they all had a subtle colour code captured my imagination. The same style of design can be found in toys today - Power Rangers are a prime example, each team member has a base colour and attendant craft with a special function. The overarching theme of Thunderbirds however was always rescue - not saving the universe or battling exotic aliens and this theme has been echoed in toy lines ever since. One of the finest and best conceived toys were the Matchbox/Mattel Mega-Rig series. These toys have recently undergone a major re-vamp and are availalble today in a much larger scale with considerably 'dumbed-down' functions, using a much more flexible plastic and safer parts. The basic premise of the toys is interchangeability and this is still present although in a much reduced form.
Back in the 90's though, Matchbox began with a simple line of basic models - a jet, a boat, a helicopter and a truck. All the elements covered - sea, air and land with a basic theme of rescue where all other attempts fail. Throughout the entire range and up until the last three models, the series had a clever system of connectors - one small pin of about 2mm wide and a larger peg of about 15mm. This allowed the wing on one model to connect to the body of another - ship to copter, jet to truck etc. The full range would cover a website on its own - and it may be a project that i'll cover one day, but for now - i'd like to flag up some of the best of the range.
An early theme which came along around the second or third series was a 'jungle' setting, and this came with a Jungle Jet, Hovercraft and River Submarine. The large Jungle Jet was essentially a Helijet style vehicle and would not look out of place in Joe 90 or Thunderbirds as one of the 'background' vehicles.
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| MEGA RIG JUNGLE JET |
The first incarnation of the Jungle Jet was a large cargo plane fitted with massive turbofan under each wing to allow VTOL capabilities. The underside had a large cargo bay with more than a nod to Thunderbird 2 and a switch near the tail let the interior pod drop out and convert into a base or a stand alone river craft. On the back of the jet is another bay, this time holding a small hover vehicle. All the elements of the jet, tail, turbofans etc could be swapped about with the pod and the hovercraft, to change the appearance of the vehicle, dependant on mission. If you collected all the vehicles from the line, you could swap out with parts of the sub and large hovercraft to make even bigger craft.
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| ARCTIC RESCUE JET |
After the Jungle line came an Arctic adventure theme, with a variation of the Jet, a massive Polar Explorer Sub and an Icebreaker ship. The Arctic Rescue Jet was essentially the same as the Jungle, apart from a bright red livery and different crew. Alongside the Artctic Rescue came a Police Rescue series, comprising a big twin rotor helicopter, truck and the ubiquitous Jet. This blue version came along on the back of a big hauler truck fitted with working searchlight.
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| POLICE RESCUE JET |
All versions of the Jet were interchangeable and featured the same base parts of jet, boat, hovercraft and base pod unit. Another common feature of the line was a 'container' or box like unit which would slot into copters, trucks, jets and shuttles to carry different rescue gear.
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| JUNGLE JET ELEMENTS |
As the sets became outdated, they were readily available on ebay or at garage sales for a few pounds and allowed me to gather a set of spares for customising and repairs. I used the lower boat section and a few miscellaneous parts from other sets to create this mini-sub carrier. The mini sub came with the Rescue Ship.
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| Custom Jet Payload |
By far one of my all time favourites in the Mega Rig line are the submarines. Besides the huge Arctic Sub, there was a Shark Sub (yellow) which came with two divers, a shark cage and a host of cool parts and the Jungle Sub variation, finished in green and silver. These break down nicely into parts that can be stacked together to make an undersea base, or as a deep sea recovery platform.
The sub theme will be explored later as I venture into the depths of my sub collection soon!
