Corgi X-ploratrons

Frank Langford

With Star Wars a big hit and Gerry Anderson effectively out of the picture in the 1980's, Corgi turned to its imagination for a brief range of space themed vehicles to cash in on the rekindled wave of interest in sci-fi. The X-Ploratrons weren't a huge success but wereone of the short lived novelty lines that the company experimented with before it began to founder. The four mid size diecasts each had an action feature.

X-3  Magentron had a moveable arm with magnetic grip and a sample hatch in the roof, as well as a sliding cockpit on the side.

X-4 Scannertron had a self righting cockpit, jungle cutters at the front and back, a magnifying lens in the centre and a large scanner.

X-2 Lasertron had a moveable lenticular prismatic disc on the back

X-1 Rocketron, despite its name, played it safe with a small launcher on the rear and a compass fitted in the main cockpit. 

The rane was supported by comic style adverts prepared by Frank Langford and the 1981 catalogue showed the vehicles with a rather half hearted headline that looked like someone had doodled in their lunch hour. Despite the apparent effort Corgi went to publicise the range, it never caught on and was not seen in any subsequent catalogues.

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The Big Book of Corgi does show a fifth or prototype model which never made production.