AMPHICAR: THE REAL McCOY!

The real thing!

1966 and 67 Amphicars!

Take me to the river!

Anyone own one?

(pictures courtesy of Liveauctioneers)

T IN A CIRCLE AMPHIBIOUS CAR: COLOUR VARIATION

Further to the earlier piece on Ferryman's T Amphibious Car and based on a heads-up from Arto, I have searched previous sales on Liveauctioneers for more and was amazed to find three! Above is the first and at a nice angle - but the best is yet to come.

There's a blue version too! Yippee! 

The Luxury Yacht, featured earlier, came in two different types rather than colours and as such had two different model numbers. It's unlikely but I wonder if there is a blue version box with the model number 368?

Wonderful and thanks Arto!

MAN, SPACE, LIFE AND THE FERRY CANOPY BY ARTO

"Hi Paul,

A true tour-de-force investigation on the origins of SWORD box art, congratulations! It seems that many roads lead back to the Time-Life picture syndication, since Ed Valigursky's illustration of the Booster Rocket - as featured in the Life Science Library book "Man and Space" (1964) - quite obviously was an inspiration for the SWORD Booster Rocket box art.

One single most exciting detail about Bob McCall's illustration of the Nuclear Ferry for me is how the cross-section image of the front cockpit & seating area translated into a transparent *window* in the SWORD toy version - what an endearing misunderstanding! Unless intentional, of course.

Above is a picture of the Finnish version of "Man and Space", called "Ulos avaruuteen" (1972). Exactly the same A.C. Clarke -edited version with all those glossy Valigursky illustrations.

Cheers
Arto"

Thanks for the kind words Arto! I love the overall LIFE magazine/Time-LIFE book link you've made! SWORD might as well be called PROJECT LIFE! That's also an excellent and plausible observation about the inspiration for the toy Ferry's clear canopy too. What do other reader's think? WOTAN has also alerted me to some brilliant Nuclear Ferry cab art on reader John (Sisson's) wonderful Dreams of Space blog. The b/w pictures are as good if not better than those in SOLO! Or is that fighting talk? BTW has anybody got the MAN AND SPACE book in other languages? That's English and Finnish in the bag but any others? I'd love to see the Booster Rocket, NOVA Rocket and Moonbase pictures captions/descriptions in other languages too for posting!

NEW FLYING SAUCER COLOURS?

Reader Doc Atomic has sent in an interesting question about the plastic New Flying saucer, which was sold in JR21, T in a Circle and the German Weltraum Erkunder boxes (as previously covered on the blog).

"Woodsy, do you happen to know if the saucer came in any color combinations besides red/yellow/blue and red/yellow/pink? Are there any other examples of the red/yellow/pink versions coming in the T-in-a-Circle boxes?"

Anyone able to help Doc?

SOMETHING'S WRONG ON CAPRICORN ONE

Well it's been a sunny relaxing weekend so far at Moonbase Central. Yesterday was spent ambling through the snickitts and lanes of ancient York whilst window ogling, people watching and charity shopping. York's finds include a big box VHS of the 1980's classic MONSTER SQUAD for my collection; WATCHERS, a Dean Koontz-inspired 80's schlocker to watch sometime, several old Dr.Who books,including a technical manual, for Amazoning and a VHS I'm so looking forward to watching again after many years, CAPRICORN ONE, about a faked landing on the wastes of MARS - very SWORDesque!

Speaking of martian-like wastes, I've just seen on the news that a volcano has erupted in Iceland. About a hundred miles from Reyjkavik, flights have been diverted, local people evacuated and a state of emergency declared in that area, which we went near last year on our fantastic Iceland holiday! The raw power of nature is everywhere on the island so it doesn't surprise me that there's some volcanic activity. Most Europeans have to cope with some bad winter weather now and then but just imagine dealing with an ash cloud and a lava flow! Spectacular from afar but no doubt very frightening on the ground. You can see the eruption's sheer energy on this footage.

T IN A CIRCLE AMPHIBIOUS CAR: NEW TO THE BLOG FROM FERRYMAN

Some readers' toy collections are just awe-inspiring like Ferryman's, Terry's, WOTAN's, William's and Arto's. Well Ferryman has done it again! He has sent me pictures of a toy that is completely unknown to me, the fabulous T IN A CIRCLE AMPHIBIOUS CAR and I must say that it's love at first sight! The top two pictures show it in all its Hong Kong glory complete with box, instruction leaflet and inner packaging. There's something about T's plastic, it's very attractive and glossy on all their toys, optimistic even. My new little T yacht, pictured below, is just the same and has that red and white life-buoy at the rear like the car above.

But why use a yacht when you can just drive across the lake! As always I'm fascinated by the T Amphibious Car box art - just what is that Nissan-hut style cabin and bench - a fishing lodge? And those Tracy Island palms are just wonderful! Ferryman has also sent some shots of what is presumably the original make of this toy, the German SCHUCO ELEKTRO AMPHIBIO (third picture down from thw top). The boxes of the two makes are shown for comparison in the fourth shot down. We've seen this SCHUCO car before but I came at it from a completely different angle and never knew about the T connection. A similar design is one of the components of the Thunderbirds fire tender, covered previously and is part of Mike Delamar's brilliant model reconstruction.

Thanks for sharing Ferryman. As always an education! Woodsy

THE GERRY ANDERSON SWEET SHOP BY STEVE

Steve of the fab Thunderbirds Vintage Toys Site sent me this in the morning mail:

"Hello Paul.
You told me your readers have an interest in confectionery. Well, I've just taken delivery of a wedge of the stuff. 60s style. I have updated my website with these Thunderbirds Barratts cigarettes and Chocolates.

However I also have non-Thunderbirds related pictured below.

Regards
Steve"

The Fireball XL5 has the original sweets, the Man from Uncle has original sweet plus card and I was unaware that a Stingray 20 size existed.

Excellent Steve! I so remember unwrapping the Scarlet chocolate and gobbling the bar up as fast as possible! Spectrum is creamy! Woodsy. Wonder if there were any Anderson Easter Eggs?

REDBOX PROJECT MARS ROCKET

Pictures courtesy of Ebay.

Another new one on me was this REDBOX PROJECT MARS ROCKET that recently graced Ebay. Made in Hong Kong it's clearly a relative of the T in a Circle Apollo X and the Nomura Apollo X. I particularly love the name Project Mars. In fact the crater-filled landscape on the 2nd picture is very like the moonscapes on SWORD box art. Beautiful.