I recently saw these on an online auction and yet again the Japanese created a toy I've never seen before, the Captian Car.
Made by Takara, these Captain Scarlet toy SPV's and SPC's appear to be made from simply moulded brown or silver plastic and have, I assume, simple axled wheels to allow them to have been pushed around Japanese floors.
The beautifully illustrated header cards depict the SPV, SPC and Captain Scarlet himself but also a flying Angel Interceptor. Whether this was the third 'Captain Car' I don't know or did Takara adhere to the definition of 'car' to the letter and exclude the angel jet. The obvious omission is the MSV.
Looking at the strange decals on the vehicles it strikes me that they are probably very stylised 'T's, being short for Takara. There are also words moulded into the plastic of the two cars' front ends but I can't make out what they say. They look like English words.
There is no date of manufacture on the toys as far as I can see in the photographs but from their overall look I would say the 1960's, maybe to coincide with the TV show being aired in Japan. Can anyone help?
Takara were taken over by Tomy who may still have the moulds somewhere?
ReplyDeleteThe wording on the pursuit car looks like 'Rato Pop-up' could it be "Strato-Police"?
The other looks like 'World GTS' or CTS? but they both have more writing down the sides as well.
They are blow-moldings, and a fascinating find!
Hugh
Cool find! They would have made great additions to my ever-expanding space car collection.
ReplyDeleteCheers guys. Hugh, do you think its the same Takara of Henshin Cyborg fame? Didn't they also make the Japanese version of Action Man?
ReplyDeleteMy good friend and Scarlet collector Terry informs me that the Captain Cars are in fact money banks as they have slots for coins, which we can't see in the shots. I suppose there's no need to make a money bank complicated and simple blow-moulded plastic suffices.
ReplyDeleteI guess so - Takara were quite a big firm and still operate under their own name in some regions - it (the history) all used to on the Tomy website, along with a lot of the main brands, they were doing a 75th anniversary or something, if it's not there I still have the PDF's you could download at the time, drop me a line.
ReplyDeleteH