THE UFO77 LEONESSA

 This little modern UFO toy car looks quite wonderful!

Straker eat your heart out!

The UFO77 Leonessa by Playforever.

Let us know if you get one and send us a snap.

PS. I am in no way connected to Playforever and have not bought this car myself!

IMAI UFO BASE 5: DOME SWEET DOME

I have always liked the look of the Imai UFO model bases with the dome units.

This one I saw on Yahoo Japan is set number 5.

In it is a fab little Project SWORD Moon Prospector [far left] and a lovely small fleet of UFO vehicles.

I've never established any formal connection between project SWORD and UFO. It was most likely a creative crossover by the marketing guys at Imai back in the late Sixties, brought to life on the cover by the great Shigeru Komatsuzaki.

Have you got any Imai UFO models?

IMAI UFO BASE 1976 WITH PROJECT SWORD MOON CRAWLER

[pics: taka]

AOSHIMA UFO MOON BASE BIULT AND PAINTED

[pic: kohokugareki]

Beautiful built and painted Aoshima UFO Moon Base including both UFO and Project SWORD vehicles. Not sure what the jet is under the central dome. Anyone?

A different take on the same kit below, this one set on a white lunar surface.

and the painted vehicles from this diorama as a group

[2 pics: milano killer]

MY NEW FAVOURITE PROJECT SWORD TOY ABSOLUTELY NOT IN MY COLLECTION!

I do think this is the new favourite toy I haven't got, the original Imai UFO Thunderbird Secret Command Base Set complete with 3 beautiful Project SWORD model toys. 

Its just stunning in its original fruitbowl of colours and is not to be confused with later re-issues in rather boring white or two-tone. The size is still difficult to envisage without anything recognisable next to them and as I am scale-extric/ scale-phobic/ scale-immune what it says on the box, if anything, won't help me!

Has anybody got one of these amazing sets? 

[pictures: godzitoraman]

THUNDERBIRD SECRET DOOM CENTER BY IMAI INCLUDING PROJECT SWORD

Further to pictures from Japan last month of the original Imai SWORD model vehicles, here are some more of Imai's Thunderbird Secret Doom Center. An epic contraption, I would say its more like a toy than a model kit. Everything seems pre-biult or is this one a biult-up? With everything pre-coloured it looks so much better than the pictures I've seen of the modern Carlton UFO Moonbase re-release of a similar kit. Am I wrong?

The box looks huge and impressive and you can see the free poster that comes with it, which I assume is card. I wonder if Imai actually meant DOOM and not DOME? The picture of the red and yellow Moon Crawler is the best yet with all its antenna and shovels attached. The Scramble Bug comes with a small antenna and the Moon prospector has overturned!

I would still love to see clear big close-ups of each of these three models on the blog. Can anyone help?

Imai Moon Crawlers

Imai SWORD model kits are a SWORD sub-genre in their own right and would make a fabulous collection. As with all the outer fringes of SWORD toys and kits they are hard to come by. I've only ever seen pictures of them, which I continue to drool over. Super Scarlet collector and SWORD bloodhound Terry has flagged up this fabulous Imai Moon Crawler kit from the land of the Rising Sun. It's kit number 4 in the UFO Star Base series from 1972 with box art by the Japanese Showa master Komatsuzaki Shigeru. The Moon Crawler takes centre stage in the cover picture and the contents are shown below but I just cannot tell how big it would be biult up. Does anyone know?

Komatsuzaki Shigeru is without doubt the Seventies heir of the Sixties SWORD box art crown. He continued the tradition if fabulous SWORD art on Imai's boxed kits. From one of a number of books about his art, below is a picture of his original art from 1971 for another Moon Crawler study, where the vehicle is again it's centrepeice. The kit itself translates to Space Attack Squadron and the finished box art and contents appear below. Again I just can't make out how big the finished Crawler would be. Are they Spacex sized, C21 SWORD sized or somewhere in between?