A FEW GOOD LEMS

LP

CLIFFORD

BLUE SHIELD

AHI

SPACEX

From my cyber archive over the last few years.

Pictures: Woodsy, Ebay, Vectis

Have you any more LEMS?

Soaring Past a Cloud Spire

Space General

I was thinking what the next well-known general space toy range would have been after SpaceX ca.1970? Nothing film related, just general space designs. I'm thinking Multimac maybe? Seems a bit late. What do you think?

Towards Saturn

The Heimdall left the grip of Jupiters jealous hand, accelerated by the close approach to her gravity well and ignited the drives to set course on the final leg of the momentous journey to Saturn. Tor Skarvald, Mission Commander, was first to leave the specially shielded hull section of the ship, to make his way to the command centre and check the ships systems fully. In order to make such a close pass to the Jovian magnetosphere and bathe in the deadly radiation emitted from the planet, the Heimdall was fitted with massive magnetic field generators and a special module at the centre of the ship, in which the crew could take refuge during the dangerous manoevre. The field generators shrouded the ship with a pulsing, glowing field which strobed brightly as it passed through the waves of radiation, reminding Skarvald of the aurora borealis on the cold winter evenings as a child in Norway. He had been specially chosen as mission commander due to his extensive study of Saturns moons and had been responsible for the development of several remote probes sent to the system prior to the manned mission. He was particularly interested in studying the Norse group, a part of Saturns known 63 satellites, named after Norse mythological figures. He often jokingly referred to the group of 29 moons as the most 'scientifically important', but usually only in the presence of his native american colleague Nascha Anishinaabe, who had been involved in naming and studying the Inuit group, which reflected eskimo mythology. The quiet and reserved astrogeologist would be among the first to actually land on the surface of some of the larger satellites and Tor held her expertise in this difficult field in utmost respect.
She had been responsible for planning the route through Saturns systems, along with astrogator Tori Varr, to ensure the moons with greatest scientific value were visited during the brief stay in the system. Now the excitement aboard the ship had become almost palpable as the six astronauts began the final checks of the equipment and the ship as they came ever nearer to the mysterious jewel of the Solar System and her eerie necklace of glowing satellites.

Vince's Superset

Hello Woodsy!

I've been a fan of your blog for a good couple of years now, I didnt start my own till late last year...I'd love my Spacex bits to be featured, I have very fond memories of getting the set for Christmas and of seeing all of the Spacex craft on cards, on a rack, in our local toy shop 'Macgauleys' which used to be on the Coventry Road in Birmingham. Alas of course it is no more but at the time it was great, nearly all my Xmass toys came from there in the mid to late 60's, Thunderbird craft. Batman Outfit, James Bonds Aston Martin etc.. it had that wonderful toy shop smell too!.

I had my Spacex Boxed Set, up untill around 1986, when we moved from Castle Vale Birmingham to Tamworth, and somehow it got Ruined..I cant really remember, but all i have is Part of the Box lid, a few Craft, and the Lunar Surface.

 

I'm pretty sure it was on display in Lewis'es in Birmingham, at the time..my folks had taken me to see 'First Men In The Moon'. I loved it and so for Christmass that year I wanted something with a Space theme. I had Robots & Flying saucers, but the Spacex set seemed so cool, probably because of all the different craft, and because you got the Lunar Surface too, perfect for my 'First Men In The Moon' Re-enactments!

Anyway..sorry about the life story!
Love yer Blog!
All The Best.
Vince

http://vincesatomictoyandcomicblog.blogspot.com/

Mystery Ship Comp

OK Swordies, get your thinking caps on. What's this toy?

An SPV by any other name

So previously, we have seen the SPV in various forms and styles that we would immediately recognise from the Captain Scarlet TV series. But besides the museum grade replicas and specially adapted radio control models, there are a number of other appearances by the signature vehicle. The japanese market, always a hotbed of adaptation and modification, took the basic shape of the SPV and bent it to their inscrutable collective will in a number of odd forms. 

Possibly some of the strangest are the Tiger Captain series of kits by Aoshima. A hybrid of SPV and main battle tank, the Tiger Captain borrows heavily from the standard SPV, even down to Captains Scarlet and Blue at the controls!

Rob Craig over at JapanSuperFantasticModel was lucky enough to find one of these outlandish kits back in the 1970's. Most of the kits appear to be remote controlled too.

Besides grafting the SPV onto a tank, the japanese kit designers also made a number of 'super-deformed' or 'cute' versions of the SPV such as this black version by Aleph-Zero (below) or the simple red kit version.

Toy kit versions of all the major Captain Scarlet vehicles also abounded like this unofficial blue and red version of the SPV which may have been sold at retail outlets such as supermarkets and sweetshops.

 

Marui, another kit maker and plagiariser of designs, made a number of uses of the standard SPV, adding their own little design features such as external cannons and a front windshield!

The Mechanic Machine is a transparent plastic version!

Lark and WAVE also produced resin 'garage kit' versions of the vehicle for the more experienced modeller.

Roll on till part 5!  Previous entries: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Day-F-Ran O-Ran-Ge

I've owned a Day F Ran Space Glider for some years now. Probably the cheapest looking of all the Space Glider knockoffs, I have, however, always liked the bright orange colour. Looking through my photo archives, I noticed this Day F Ran Rolls Royce. Despite being in its box, it does look as though it's the same bright orange as the Space Glider. Anyone got both to compare?