ALL MEVVED UP

I recently compared the Soviet Lunnik crawler toy [above left] to the Major Matt Mason Space Crawler by Mattel.

Looking at the Lunnik pictures again it sort of looks like the MEV 2 from the Tri-ang Spacex range [top right]. Both have a slope fronted box body with a clear blister cockpit, just on different faces of the box. Supermodeller Frank May's fabulous white MEV was featured here in 2010 and shows the box body clearly [middle right]. We've seen the box body somewhere else as well as WOTE pointed out the similarities between the MEV 2 and the 007 Moon Buggy [bottom right] in his brilliant Buggy post last year [you can read more about the 007 Moon Buggy on the fab 007 Magazine website].

So what's the story on this box body? When was it first designed? Ed Valigursky painted his wonderful MEV 2 way back in 1966 in the seminal Man and Space book [below]. Was there a NASA concept he based it on?