Check out Santa's scooter! By Masudaya for Illfelder, its straight from Fireball XL5 and clearly inspired by Steve Zodiac's scooter.
We've seen something like before on MC. There's a Snoopy version out there and here's a snap from one 'Steve Zodiac' from a decade ago comparing a large Space Scooter by Amico to the much smaller but highly collectable Golden Gate Fireball XL5 Scooter.
The Fairylite Jetmobile comes without Zoony but does look nevertheless rather spiffing too.
There is also a fabulous Venus version of the Fairylite Jetmobile pictured on the ever-informative Alphadrome site
Anyone got either of the Fairylite vehicles and the Golden Gate JetMobile? Are they a similar size? Any chance of a snap of the them together?
Anyone got anything like this design at all?
I had a loose Golden Gate scooter without any figures. Think I painted it up to go with my Micronauts.. Bill
ReplyDeleteThose toy scooters are definitely knockoffs of the Fireball one - how cool is that? Santa Claus XL5? SFZ
ReplyDeleteOne thought I'd like to share...
ReplyDeleteBack in 1981, I was sitting with a group of colleagues at a table in the canteen attached to the place where I was working and our conversation turned (for some reason) to the "Gerry Anderson" TV series.
One of the women participating in the conversation commented that she had loved FIREBALL as a child, and had idolized Venus and how, for a birthday, her parents had presented her with a toy of Venus on her jetmobile -- the Fairylite one, I am assuming.
She went on to say that her parents had very little money, and that buying that for her must have been challenging for them -- but the fact they had done that showed how much they loved her, and how much they were willing to make sacrifices for her -- and that they continued to do so throughout her life.
I remember that story whenever I watch FIREBALL and see Venus on her jetmobile.
It brings home to me how much these shows meant to us as children, and how much we valued the little mementos we acquired.
And, I have to say, it does make me reflect more soberly on the fact that Gerry Anderson employed a team of men with sledge hammers to smash the originals to pieces -- and that he was blind to the fact he had made a lot of money selling very poor replicas of them, and that the originals would be worth something, too...
By way of contrast, Peter Firmin, Oliver Postgate and Ivor Wood kept all the puppets and drawings they had created for their films, and I heartily recommend the book, "The Art of Smallfilms" to anyone interested in their work.
Dal.