CLIFFORD LEM, HYDROPLANE AND MOON RANGER

Clifford are still relatively new to me as a toy manufacturer. Described as a Hong Kong company I'm familiar with their wonderful CAR TRANSPORTER and MOON TRAFFIC Spacex-esque range covered previously on the blog. Here's another Spacex-like boxed Clifford toy, as previously posted by WOTAN and its a cracker, the Apollo 11 LEM and Capsule. Described on the auction site as part of the "Heroes of History's Greatest Exploration Series, comprising grey Space Station and bronze coloured capsule, antenna detached but present, includes 2 x Dublo OO/HO Astronaut figures , box with colourful pictorial insert".

And with echoes of the COMET speedboat posted this month Clifford made this gorgeous HYDROPLANE and not to be outdone by other HK manufactureres Clifford put out thier own version of the ubiquitous MOONRANGER flying saucer (not to be confused with Century 21's Firefly-like Moon Ranger).

All pictures from VECTIS except Car Transporter (Woodsy Collection)

D is for Delta - S is for Scout

I'm finally back after being relegated to the virtual wilderness of being offline. Technical issues are now resolved thanks to a few lengthy phone calls to tech helplines. Bill Gates has a lot to answer for, no wonder I only use Macs!

Anyway - I was wondering about the question of the shape of the Scout craft and its similarity to the Star Destroyer et al. Arthur C Clarkes 'Man in Space' book from the LIFE series has a number of beautiful paintings by Ed Valigursky, and among them is the shuttle concept pictured above. This bears a close resemblance to the red Scout toy, but if you look at the development of the delta wing in aerodynamics, its long been a favourite of designers in pursuit of speed. During the last years of the second world war, german engineers came up with a host of innovative and revolutionary concepts for fighters, bombers and missiles. Among them was the Lippisch ramjet powered fighter, which is basically two truncated delta wings fused together.
See here: www.luft46.com/lippisch/lip13a.html.
Theres a cracking model website www.fantastic-plastic.com/

'Fantastic Plastic' has built up examples of classic space models from the early days of plastic kits to the present. The site owner Alan Ury, has catagorised the kits into easy to find sections based on decade. He has a resin kit of he Lippisch DM-1 and other later models such as the 1958 delta winged passenger jet and the Monogram Hypersonic X-30. I managed to find the last kit in its commercial version - its not a complex model by any means, basically a top and bottom fuselage and a few control surfaces. Im thinking of converting it into a swordesque shuttle/glider combination. I just need to find a suitable piggyback glider...

MOON ZERO TWO

MOON ZERO TWO was one of the coolest films I saw as a kid in the 60's, just as the decade was fading and turning into the 1970's. I remember the distinctive theme music with the slightly screechy MOON ZERO TWO chorus. One scene scared me to death, where a astronaut trurned round to reveal a skull in the helmet! Cripes! I'd forgotten a lot of the detail but having read up a bit there's a lunar base called Farside 5 and even a Moon Ferry, which I'd love to see close up! Comparisons have been made with UFO and Space 1999. Why oh why don't they show iconic films like this on UK TV instead of the usual pap we get!

David Sisson, modelmaker, has put together a brilliant fan site for the film and an online feature about the film's spacesuits . Here you can see the above-mentioned "skull" shot and the brilliant MOON FARGO moon buggy, which reminds me of the SWORD ANT and Corgi's LUNAR BUG. Cool.

HOVER JEEP AND TRACTOR

Continuing the Jeep theme from SWORD-realted toy companies, here we have a fabulous HOVER SAFARI JEEP AND ROVER. the distinctive wings logo is clearly visible and the lidded box is very reminiscent of the HOVER PROBE FORCE 3.

7

Far less appealing to me personally are tractors (although I had a large ride-on one as a nipper) but I like the box of this HOVER 5000 SUPER TRACTOR, as its even more obviously the same box style as HOVER's PF3.

And heres the same tractor in red and a different box.

All pictures can be found at VECTIS auctions

EMPIRE CHUCK WAGON JEEP, MR.STICKLER, PEE WEE SLUGGER SET AND THE TARHEEL QUESTION

I think I'm in love with plastic jeeps. Ever since I found the Century 21 Hurdler at the Pudsey Swapmeet this year I've been on the look out for more interesting makes. I blogged the GI Joe-sized Empire Jeep last week and here we have another spectacular boxed Empire Jeep or Chuck Wagon. On Ebay USA, as pictured below, there's no size given but it could be GI Joe-sized again so not ideal for the SWORD fleet. Still, a distant relative of Tarheel SWORD.

And further searching on the ever-fruitful Ebay USA revealed the Empire Plastics Corp MR. STICKLER boxed game below from the 1950's. The relationship between Empire Toys, Empire Plastics and Tarheel is more complex than I thought as I didn't expect to see such an old Empire toy. I would have expected it to have been Tarheel. It may be that Empire Plastics Corporation, unlike Empire Toys, are not related to Tarheel after all?

But then Ebay USA throws up this beautiful plastic Empire PEE WEE SLUGGER SET below. Dated 1960, the city of TARBORO, NC is clearly visible after the word EMPIRE. This is the same location as Tarheel. Again I would have expected such an early toy to have been branded Tarheel. So did Empire and Tarheel exist at the same time?

SWORD BLOG FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY COMING SOON!

Sunday morning and I'm suffering with one of my pesky migraines. My better half has gone to the boot sale without me! Drat and double drat. I'm in bed with a cold compress, codeined-up and typing myself back to sleep.

7

Whilst still conscious, I was just looking through the Blog's 1st Birthday material so far and it's awesome! There's some really brilliant stuff from people who were at the beginning of Century 21 like Alan Shubrook, thier youngest modelmaker back in the 60's and Gerry Embleton, TV21 artist; from people at the heart of the second wave of interest in Anderson shows in the 80's and 90's like modelmaker Martin Bower and artist Graham Bleathman; from pioneers of Anderson research like Dennis Nicholson and Shaqui Le Vesconte and modern-day super-collectors like the mighty WOTAN, Ferryman and Steve of vintagethunderbirdstoys! Wow!

7

And you won't beleive the competitions, prizes and special offers! Gobsmacking! Set your SWORD calender - the month-long party starts September 15th! Your'e all invited!

7

From the counter at the bottom I see we have just gone past 29,000 hits! Well done Swordheads! Wonder if we'll reach 30,000 by the 15th Sept!%&*?!

BLUE STREAK

Blue Streak on TV

ANDERPUP, CHRIS LEACH, SCOUT 3 AND IT

Virtually all IT problems solved at Moonbase but some important messages from artists like Gerry Embleton and modelmakers like Martin Bower, for the 1st Birthday month celebration coming up, remain 'lost'. My old laptop is at the PC doctors in attempt to rescue these! Fingers crossed!

Meanwhile I'm sat in the garden on a sunny August Saturday enjoying the delights of a fully functioning brand-new Compaq laptop, which actually has a fully-loaded working battery! My old and first laptop, however much I was attached to it, just didn't do everything it should have. The battery packed up in the first of its five years of hard labour in the Sword Moonbase Mines, so typing outside involved an extension cable and a weak radio signal. One day I'll look back fondly on those hardships but for now I'm basking in the sunlight of technical brilliance surrounded by butterflies and bees! I just hope WOTAN's new wireless router is bedding in OK as well and then SWORD transmissions will be completely back to normal!

I've just taken possession of a wonderful bundle of Anderson ephemera. There's 1980's SIG's and Anderpups, Action 21's, 1990's Thunderbirds comics and 1980's Fanderson posters and fliers. Best of all are a set of 'Thunderbirds 6' looby (or lobby even!) cards from the 1966 cinema release. with one showing Brains working on a model. The early 1980's Anderpup fanzines are amazing too - done by a visionary called Chris Leach. They may have been simply typed, photocopied and stapled but they did the business years before the internet and fan blogs like this were even dreamt of! Where is Chris Leach now I wonder?

In one of the comics is a very strange craft, which sort of reminds me of the strangest of all SWORD vehicles, the Scout 3 or to give it it's full title, Scout FORCE 3, pictured above. I'll post the comic picture soon but I'm still left wondering where on earth did Century 21 Toys get that wedge-shaped design from years before we saw the Imperial Battle Cruiser in Star Wars?

6

Out,

Woodster

MOON UNIT

Has anyone seen the film MOON? Trying to track it down in my area. The plot sounds interesting about a lone worker on the moon. It's made by David Bowie's son, who changed his name from Zowie Bowie to Duncan Jones. Wonder if Moonunit Zappa has changed his name? I thought Moonunit was the coolest name ever when I came acroos it in the 70's!

There are a few IT issues at the mo at Moonbase Central as hardware is updated. Transmission should be back to normal soon!

And remember, from the 15th September we'll be celebrating the blog's 1st Birthday! Be sure to tune in for fab ( and I mean fab) competitions, special articles, messages and cool blog offers! It'll be swordtastic!

EMPIRE PLASTICS JEEP

I really love this Empire Plastics (successor to Tarheel) Jeep on Ebay USA. Postage is too steep for me here in the UK though! "1976 Vintage Military Jeep with Cart: Empire Tarboro, North Carolina and could be used for GI Joe's"

Would look great with SWORD toys but, alas, it's too big! Maybe not the Saturn or Sears Apollo Rocket - it would stand in the trailer or lie atop the windscreen missile-carrier style!