SPACE RACER X 50 - JR21?

This plastic space jet was recently sold on Ebay. Described as a 'SPACE RACER X 50, made in Hong Kong No.233.' Intriguingly the seller suggested that it may possibly have been made by JR21 and is from the same series as the X 60 rocket launcher. JR21? Can anyone shed any light on this?

Scalecraft Aerocar Redux !

Heres a much better condition Aerocar from fellow collector Ferryman. Although the propellor isnt the original part and has been replaced from a Spitfire from the same manufacturer, this model does include a small 'dinosaur' fin on the top of the canopy. Ferryman has also restored the silver stickers. Excellent work as always!

Moon Expedition 1970

Richard Warren Sears started a mail order catalogue service late in the 19th century, selling watches and other goods. This rapidly became a staple of american culture and in the late sixties the toy section of these grand catalogues was a cornucopia of delights at Xmas. Sears often had exclusive products and one such wonder of the age is this Space Mobile.

Looking like it could easily traverse any lunar landscape with comfort and ease, the Space Mobile is a solid, stylish vehicle - the caddy of the moon buggy world. Its basically a plastic toy, with a tinplate battery cover and powerful rubber belts driving the eight, pivoting wheels. It seems to have been influenced by the Matt Mason line of toys, as the rotating radar scanner is very similar to the Firebolt Cannon and the figural pilot has a look of a child sized Matt Mason too.

Although reality was way behind the Sears designers ideas for moon travel and NASA were still working the kinks out of the best way to get across the dusty, barren surface of the moon - Popular Mechanics magazine and German engineering firm Bohn were keen to speculate on the possible future of tractor design. Having been reared on Scramble Bugs and Prospectors, Moonmobiles and Americus Buggies, I recall been so disappointed when the basic, skeletal, moon go-kart of the Lunar Roving Vehicle was unveiled! What a missed opportunity! :-p

Over the Moon!

Heres another odd example of Tri-ang making a stand alone space toy, Luna-Cy. Probably the best presented and packaged of the missile base sets ive come across so far. Made in 1969/70, the game is designed so that players can blast rockets at a vac-formed plastic moon hemisphere that clips onto a door frame, as can be seen in the article from 'Games and Toys' Trade journal and the two catalogue snippets pictured above.

Its had a lot of thought put into the game, the large door clip has a special card banner that hangs on the outside, warning entrants to the room that rocket firing is in progress - which is a good thing, as the launchers are very powerful! The spring tension can be adjusted to one of three settings, which from experience I would put at wow!, jeezus! and oh god there goes the lampshade! In fact, the only real flaw with the toy is the power of the launchers as the small trigger that propelled the rocket forward eventually snaps off as it hits the gantry.

Besides two large launchers, half a moon and six missiles, the set comes with six themed base cards. In a flash of precognitive brilliance, the designers have used Peking as the centre for a chinese rocket base, predicting the oriental space programme by some decades, but equally they miss the mark slightly by placing a similar facility in London!

Artwork for the box and packaging is lavish and colourful and the top of the box features a pop out section that enables an open box display and the sides have fabulous colour paintings of the toy. Even the inner tray has a star speckled finish.

The moon hemisphere is very reminiscent of the Spacex Moon landscape that was provded in the Supersets a year later. The rubber tipped rockets and the large launchers remind me very strongly of the pilot episode of Joe 90, where the stolen Mig jet bombards a missile base featuring pads very similar to the Luna-Cy set.

Catalogue scans and toys from the Wotan Archive and the Games and Toys excerpt kindly supplied by the Philosophic Toad.

Tri-ang Moonmobile Redux

Ive touched on this baby before in the more general article http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2009/02/crawler-cavalcade-by-wotan.html, but its one of my special favourites and actually the very first item I ever bought on ebay!

Made by Tri-ang for the 'space year 1969' as the small article in the Tri-ang '69 Xmas catalogue puts it, this is a wonderful toy by any stretch of the imagination. Bearing very close similarity to its larger Marx cousin and also having a lot in common with Mattels Space Crawler, this is a much more 'sci-fi' vehicle than the other more realistic crawlers.

The streamlined hull and chromed parts are accentuated by the big twin missile launcher mounted over the cockpit. On this model, the previous owner made up a pair of reproduction missiles but also fitting in slots inside the cabin are four original missiles. Keen eyed Anderson and Dinky collectors will immediately recognise these as belonging to the Dinky SPV and SHADO 2 Mobile. Tri-ang were obviously making good use of their affiliation with the company and borrowed a few parts! Commander Craig also has a definite look of Captain Scarlet on the box artwork, even down to the light up epaulettes on his bright yellow tabard jacket.

Powered by two batteries neatly slung under the cockpit, the Moonmobile races along and has great climbing ability. Attention has also been lavished on the box art and a great deal of painted artwork graces the sides. Even the inner tray for the toy is quite complex and the main box endflaps have special instructions for opening correctly.

Also featured in the Xmas catalogue was another space item from Tri-ang, the Spacenik. This was a version of Tomys 'Grippidee Gravidee' toy and the actual toy itself is still branded Tomy, whereas the box is marketed by Triang Rovex. Conspicuous by their abscence in the 'space year' are Spacex toys! Shame!

Its also interesting to notice the price sticker on the end of the box - 49/11 - thats about £2.50 or so in todays money, but would have been a premium item at the time!

Question of Scale(craft)

Found myself ferreting in the back of the garage today to evict another dead mouse from the Wotan archive. Little bugger had nested in a box of Zoids and succumbed to the poison I laid down recently. While i was cleaning up the mess, I came across my old catalogues and re-discovered the aforementioned Scalecraft catalogue. This is where I first saw the Aerocar kit and also, oddly, shows Billy Blastoff! Its undated, but must be around 1968/69 judging by Billys appearance. I still have some of these kits from later issues, the Saladin, Medway Queen and a Chieftain Tank (not shown). I'd like to get hold of the Amphibian and Sea Cat!

Mega Blogging

While Woodsy is languishing in the bosom of his family in darkest Lancashire, Ive been left holding the virtual blog-baby and taking full advantage of the opportunity to post! The next four articles are directly linked to the earlier LUNIK article, so please bear with me and try and look over all of them!

Air We Go..

The Lunik 2000 post started a real train of thought for me and has resulted in a mega blog fest of related articles. Seeing the latest variation of the vehicle, I was reminded of a couple of toys I have. First one is the red Aerocar - this was a friction driven toy bought around 1970 from a toy shop in Prestatyn, North Wales. I remember this quite distinctly as it was given to me as a much cheaper alternative to the Project Sword Probe Force 2! I had my eye on the sword vehicle, but my dad thought it was way too expensive and I was placated with this little beauty instead.

Originally it had a whirling propellor as it rolled along and opening canopy. Two small soft plastic wings fitted on the rear (one is photoshopped in for effect). Over the years my dad repaired it as best he could and a couple of years ago I came across the original kit on which the toy must have been based - the Scalecraft Aerocar. I have seen this advertised in a catalogue alongside Billy Blastoff toys, so it can be dated to the mid sixties.

This arrived minus the propellor and partially made, albeit suffering from a common problem with scalecraft kits - poor moulding and fit. The prop was originally fitted at the rear for thrust and the colour scheme is reversed, but other than that it is the inspiration for the unbranded Hong kong toy. The kit is also motorised and has a small control stem. The resemblance to the Lunik 2000 is too close to call too, but its difficult to say for sure, which toy predates which.