The movie Thunderbirds Are Go is a must see for SWORD Fans. Its all about Zero-X after all!
The movie Thunderbird 6 has much to offer too. Besides the amazing Skyship 1 there are some beautiful models too.
I've discussed Brains' tantrum in Thunderbird 6 many times on the blog. Its a painful watch as the angry boffin destroys three superb model craft, all of which were his prototypes [or were they maquetes?] for Thunderbird 6.
If you haven't seen it here's a handy montage of the three models being thrown on the floor, which I found on You Tube.
There is a toy connection to the red model shown above. It involves the Tarheel and Durham toy companies of North Carolina, USA. I first talked about it here years ago and was chuffed to have the idea included in the latest copy of the Gerry Anderson based fanzine ANDERSONIC.
Its interesting to note that the clip's You Tuber has also commented about the potential numbering of these three models if they had all become part of the fleet. Thunderbirds 6, 7 and 8!
This isn't the first time we've seen a Thunderbird 7. Certainly not in the model/toy world. Imai released a Thunderbird 7 in the 1980's.
We now know that this is actually the Snow Train from the Project SWORD universe and more exactly its the Snow Train with its heat shields up ready for magma diving as seen in the Project SWORD Annual.
In this shielded form its called the BEETLE.
Like the red Thunderbird 6 in the clip the Beetle would have made an excellent friction drive toy. Its a real shame that Century 21 Toys never released it as part of the Project SWORD toy range [although C21 did licence the Imai model].
We can get an idea of what a JR21 Beetle might have looked like in this superb mock-up done by collector Ferryman in 2009.
The actual model was released by Imai in orange plastic and intriguingly in plain white.
I shall write about the white version at a later date.
For now ....
Like Keaton's Batman says in '89,
"Shields!"
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