Superior 1

My favourite toy ambulance as a kid was without doubt the Dinky Superior Criterion shown below to the left. The Batmobile looks just blew me away [surely the inspiration for the Ghostbuster's ECTO 1?]. I can't not mention the Dinky Police Van too, pictured on the right, with those fabulous fold-out SLOW signs, which were stored inside the van! Ah, happy days.

Excited by seeing the Superior Criterion again I thought I'd customise a picture in my archive. Here's a SWORDized NFIC plastic custom [done purely for fun].

What were your favourite toy cars as kids?

Captain's Ambulance

Blogger have had lots of problems this week and the whole site has been down. It's just come back up and I can see that the Pleasure Cruiser post I did mid-week has been lost. Whilst I try to recover it from cyberspace here's a bloglet I did whilst doing a shift at Bradford Sub-Base, which continues the ambulance thread with a picture and observations from my erstwhile SWORD supercontact Marc J. Frattasio regarding the cool Captain Scarlet TV ambulance shown above.

This unusually aerodynamic looking eight-wheeled ambulance made brief guest appearances in Winged Assassin and Treble Cross. The Captain Scarlet ambulance appears to have been a one-shot, hand-made deal which was primarily fabricated from wood. Clear acetate plastic sheet was used for the windows. The wheels are the kind of thing used with radio controlled model airplanes. The cab interior was fitted with the bust of a driver made from sculpted and painted plasticine clay.

The model was fitted with operating lighting consisting of interior lights and flashing blue lights mounted over the cab. These lights were battery operated model railroad grain of wheat lamps. The Captain Scarlet ambulance was actually rebuilt from the yellow Crablogger control vehicle seen in the Thunderbirds episode Path of Destruction. Most of the wooden or fiberglass models used in the Supermarionation programs were finished using cellulose automotive paints. Such paints are easy to sand down and repaint. Thus, models finished with cellulose automotive paints were easier for the special effects technicians and modelmakers to repair or rework.

You can see more of Marc's classic Captain Scarlet Trucks research here.

Rock Snakes ? Mysterons ? Phahh..

Fellow blogger and contributor Rocket Punch mailed me the other day to tell me of a rather unsettling event in his home in Arizona..

"I've begun attempting outdoor photography with my models.  Unfortunately, the vegetation in our yard is all cacti.  No matter where I set a model it looks as though it landed on Giant Cactus Planet.  Also, between takes, one of the larger desert squirrels that calls our yard home nearly dashed off with my Aoshima MEV.  I've seen it drag away bags of peanuts, a jewelers screwdriver, and a few pencils, but when he dashed out nabbed my MEV I nearly fainted.  Thankfully, he couldn't move fast enough with it and ended up dropping it before reaching his burrow.  No obvious damage that I could find.  I'll have to be extra careful if I intend to photograph tiny models like that in the future. "

And to think Zero X faced the rock snakes and defeated the Mysterons only to almost be spirited away by a squirrel! What a nightmare!  Will has subsequently decided to christen his thieving furry pal 'Brains'!

Everyones Gone to the Moon

It's now even easier to have a close look at our nearest neighbour thanks to the Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter. The Nearside Spectacular site you can view extremely detailed closeups of the near side of the moon. Got to: http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/wac_nearside

Keen eyed observers will spot the location of Moonbase Central on the edge of the Sea of Rains and some miles distant the ragged scar left by the impact of the early atomic transport during the initial phase of the development of the base. The mass transport vehicle was remotely controlled from Earth Base, but a solar flare interrupted communications on the final approach and landing and the huge craft overshot the landing site and careered into the lunar mountainside. Luckily the nuclear drive wasn't severely damaged, but all the components for the intended moon base modules were destroyed by the impact. The project was set back considerably by this event and all future transports were accompanied by a full flight of Task Force craft, as a precaution.

Red Space

Hi Paul,

just discoverred this Russian blog about a science magazin in the kind of modern mechanix and thought of you. Perhaps you like it [example of content pictured].

http://scienceillustration.mypage.ru/

Regards

Klaus

www.blechroboter.de

Blue Moon

I recently came across these pictures from rears of two different SPACEX backing cards. Not having many carded SPACEX myself, I was intrigued by the prevelance of blue vehicles here. There's a blue Tractor T1, a blue Nuclear Pulse and most fascinating of all, a blue Moon Bus! Has anyone got better pictures or the actual toys?

PS. Was the Space Patrol 1 rocket ship [top left] often found in yellow or is that unusual? Is there a yellow knockoff as well?

WOTAN Butts in:

Don't get me started on spacex colours! I spent many an hour poring over the card backs in anticipation of my next purchase from Woolies, only to find that many times the vehicles never matched the pics on the card. I always wanted a Tractor T5 or Forklift with those lovely balloon tyres. Most of all, I wanted the white Interplanetary 1 on the launch pad and a blue pulse! So much so that after years of playing with the originals and not expecting to ever find any more, I took a can of white Humbrol paint and set to on the rocket with disastrous results. It was only after I met the venerable Mr Vreede that I found out that the rocket came in white in the Golden Astronaut release - gahhhh! 

My Nuclear Pulse had suffered years of neglect and play and was always a big thorn in my side as it appears on the card in beautiful blue and red livery, on the gorgeous box art in dayglo green and was actually made in a hideous nauseating orange. Consequently, when I had snapped off most of the wheels and damaged the dome on the top, I set to repairing it and ended up rebuilding the base and finally painting it to loosely match the card artwork. Mercifully, i've not discovered one produced in blue since.. 

Bumper T Crop

If your'e a T-Head like me, Arto and Ferryman then you might add to your growing T-Fleet. In Germany you'll find a Prospector  and if you try checking out Ebay US [and here too] there's currently a bumper crop of cool plastic boats, rockets and unusual games. Most of them are via Ebay US [with many originating in Argentina], together with one UK offering from blog reader Ferryman on Ebay UK.

PS. When searching for T-Toys, try T-Toys, T in Circle and Tai Hing, all from Hong Kong [not to be confused with T for Tarheel from Tarboro, NC, USA].

Emergency SWORD Ten

Further to my SWORD ambulance reference we had some great comments [BTW I'm OK thanks!]. Yorkie reminded me of the TF2 ambulance in the SOLO strip. I've posted it in full here from 19th August 1967. You can see in the cutaway mention is made of a 'stretcher hold', which certainly suggests that TF2 was an ambulance, but how did they get in and out?  [I'm sure there's an even clearer reference to this in SOLO but just can't find it]. Confusingly in the last frame but one, one solar week later, the patient appeears to be in the 'probe ship' at the Booster Rockets fore. Another ambulance? I agree with EvilEd that the Moonbus would have made a natural ambulance as well. And Toadster's observation about SWORD mopping up enviro-disasters got me thinking that SWORD was a sort of 'green' Thunderbirds. I remember a British '60's film called DOOMWATCH, which was just that, a bio-rescue squad [anyone seen it?] sugesting that it was a popular theme [and fear?] in the sixties [maybe even the Fifties if you include Quatermass as a sort of enviro-team?]

Did Thunderbirds or any of the other Anderson shows include futuristic ambulances?