LIKE CLOCKWORK

When visiting a toy fair in Liverpool, back in the 1980's, I stumbled across a rare treat amongst the train layouts, car models and toy soldiers - an actual space toy! At the time, there were hardly any vintage space toys on the secondary market and ebay was still a good few years away, so finding anything space themed was always a big plus. As it turned out, what I spotted and quickly bought for the princely sum of £1.25, was actually quite a new and recent toy, as I would find out some months later when visiting a toy shop. The little toy was a cross between a spacex model and plastic Meccano, some six inches high and vaguely  resembling a dinosaur. I had always had a penchant for anything bio-mechanical, so this immediately caught my eye. However, what really got me was the small golden astronaut sat in the cockpit. Was this some obscure relative of Tri-ang Spacex toys or just a co-incidence? Either way, I snapped it up and took it home, to find it was actually quite a complex little model, with a small wind up motor and a great little walking action. Closer examination showed the name of the maker - Tomy.

Not long afterwards, I saw the toy in a toy shop and found out that they were a whole range of clockwork dinosaurs, made up from small kits. Around Xmas the same year, a larger brontosaurus type model was released, with a battery powered motor and even more action features. As it was still pre-internet days, I was desperate to find out more information, so I wrote to Tomy UK and some weeks later, got a copy of their new catalogue in the post, which to my amazement, showed a radical expansion to the line, with Red Zoids and even more impressive models. Just to make things even more exciting for me there was a further range of action figure robots called Battle Rats, again with clockwork action features and again having the same golden pilot seated in the cockpits.

Thus began an intense period of buying activity for me, as I purchased wave after wave of Zoids toys and even managed to get spare parts for certain models from Tomy, to augment some of the bigger models with even more weapons. So it went on for some years, until after a bit of a lull, Tomy slyly released a Zoids 2 range, medium sized clockwork models, but much more detailed and looking even more like dinosaurs and less like a radio shack hobby. Unfortunately for me, tucked away in the box was a leaflet, all in japanese, showing even more of the new range - none of which were available in Europe. 

As sales were visibly slowing for the toys and they began to disappear from shop shelves, I assumed that they would rapidly be relegated to that list of toys that would forever be out of my reach - C21 Zero X, Johnny Seven, Spacex Space Station and Micronauts Aliens. Fast forward a few years to the advent of home internet services and wifi access and in 1997, I got my first modem and dove into a nascent internet. My first few searches were very simple and after finding information on Project SWORD and ultimately contacting Paul Woods, I then ticked off my toy bucket list. I discovered a whole raft of Star Wars models I had never seen, including the Droids line of figures, found an entire world of japanese Microman toys that I had been previously unaware of and discovered that the catalogue of Tomy Zoid toys that I had found were the tip of a very large bio-mechanical iceberg.
 

It appeared that Zoids was colossal in Japan and had manga, anime, games and all sorts of spinoffs from the toy line, let alone an immense range of models that had been available for years in the US and Far East.  It had the effect of immediately exciting me and chastening me at the same time, as I suddenly realised that I was bringing a knife to a gunfight if I thought I had any idea of completing even a small part of a Zoids collection, such were the variants and exclusives available, alongside the main line. So as a result, I contented myself with locating some of the easier prey, such as some of the aquatic models and quickly lowered my expectations. 

Nevertheless, there was still plenty of other options available to the mechanical dinosaur collector, as the Hong Kong toy makers had seized on the popularity of the line and began churning out a host of similar toys and lines. Silverlit with its Multimac line, even went s far as to almost replicate parts of the early Zoids line in their toys and included a small gold or silver astronaut in the cockpits too.

Tomy was ultimately merged with the other giant japanese toymaker Takara and Tomy-Takara went on to make even more fantastic toys and models, aimed at the collectors market.

Silverlit Multimac Ocean Discovery Line

Recent Tomy Zoids release

Tomy Zevle Deathpion

Modern Tomy Sea Scorpion