I've been browsing a few of my favourite space toy sites and came across the pink Marx Lunar Scout pictured above right over at Main Street Toys. Looking at it's pincer arms, treaded wheels, large front windscreen and general brick-like shape, I can't help thinking it comes from the same design family as the SWORD Moon Crawler. Shigeru Komatsuzaki's rendition of the Moon Crawler for the Imai Space Attack Unit kit [right] illustrates this even better I think. The intriguing thing is that Century 21 re-issued some Marx toys in their 'Hill Climbing' vehicle series like the Jeep and Dump Truck. Both of these had the same box design, wheels and scale as the Marx Lunar Scout. Could Century 21 have re-issued the Lunar Scout as well? Wow, now that would be Swordtastic!
Its probably something you've come across already, but Marx made about three battery-operated space vehicles c1968. These were mainly white plastic with silver and black parts, as I remember, and clear canopies. They were copied by Hong Kong, much smaller in size in white polythene as part of boxed space "playsets" which also included astronauts and plastic moon craters.
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memory serves you very well again Andy - Marx Hill Climbing Moon Grabbers were a fun staple toy for me in the sixties!
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