The MEV clone is considerably larger than the standard SPACEX MEV and although much chunkier in construction, is much more articulated, with a pivoting centre section.
The Moon Buggy has the familiar conical wheels which appear on the SPACEX buggy, along with a hinged dome over a cockpit, which is very suggestive of the little red/green capsule buggy from the Apollo Moon Exploring series.
The box artwork shows five distinct models, but has nine separate spaces on the box, so perhaps more models may have been planned/released.
Woodsy butts in:
The domed space car looks a lot like the Delta 8 by Gama of West Germany. Wonder if its grounded in an actual NASA design?
Is it likely the Apollo toy was inspired by Sitap? Do you know which came first? I was always a little puzzled by the odd design of the Apollo toy.
ReplyDeleteI think the apollo buggy is the earlier toy, the basis of this is a series of reuseable parts - domes and circular base, which could be used as other cheaply produced toys in the set, i.e moonbase domes and also using parts of the orange rocket, the space station platform.
ReplyDeletei think the sitap buggy is derived from a Gama buggy called Delta. Woodsy has a photo of that.
The MEV Clone looks cool, can't remember seeing that before Bill. That's one for my wants list.
ReplyDeleteThe box pictures of the others in the set look interesting too. I wonder if any of those have ever surfaced. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled!