THE BIRTH OF PROJECT SWORD PROBE FORCE 3 ON FILM

Last year I established the likely link between the Otaki Monster car kit and the Project SWORD Probe Force 3. The origin of them all is the Green Monster car, famous in US rocket car history. Here's a short film courtesy of You Tube.

Now here's some footage of the Otaki Monster Car kit from Japan also courtesy of You Tube.

And finally a You Tube clip of the Daiya Astro Space Racer tinplate car, another likely relative of Probe Force 3 and the Otaki Monster car, as they all share the similar bulbous engines and lateral exhaust vents.

To finish here is a nice shot of the Probe Force 3 itself released in 1967 by Century 21 Toys.

Are there any more similar rocket cars readers?

SPACEX TOYS EARTH LAUNCH PAD SET

Just browsing through my old Ebay picture archive and I came across this old boxed set of SpaceX toys, the Earth Launch Pad Set. I love the box art - the images look like photographs of the actual toys, which came neatly displayed inside as you can see here.

I'm assuming that this set brought together all the carded toys in the Earth Base section of the series, together with the MLP boxed toy. It all came complete with this green play mat. From the looks of it the MLP went in the hatched square and the rest of the fleet were scattered around the various marked points. Are the arrows for the MLP to taxi round? I never saw this as a kid. Did you? Has anyone ever laid everything out on this mat?

FOUR DAYS TO GO....

THE END OF THE WORLD.

A FINAL BATTLE.

DOOM RETURNS.

HOPE FALTERS.

A LOST DOORWAY.

SARGE

8PM

13TH MAY

MACH BOAT: JAPANESE STINGRAY TOY

A recent trawl round the rich waters of the Japanese net brought up these little gems. First up and shown above is the Mach Boat 駄菓子屋 台紙玩具　マッハボート, a neat carded Stingray half-cousin. I've certainly never seen one but I can imagine Japanese kids playing with them at the seaside or in the bath! Anyone recognise the makers' mark?

Here's a display card of Mach Boats which features another toy as well, a sort of jet plane. Mighty Jack maybe? No idea if its meant to be a boat too? Beautiful header art for a rack toy don't you think?

Second and shown below is a cool little bubble keyring, which for some reason reminds me of the LP dome car, which many of us have on our display shelves [apart from that unusual one on three legs!]. No idea what's going on inside that bubble though?

TRIANG BATTLE SPACE TURBO CAR IS GO!

Just in case some readers aren't familiar with the Tri-ang Battle Space Turbo Car, here it is courtesy of You Tube's easta007. 

Percevere with this short clip. The train enthusiast eventually gets some superb close-ups of the car zooming forwards and backwards. I don't own one so I have to ask, is it really propeller powered?

I wonder if it ever did appear in any Anderson shows, although the timing might be out. What do you think?

WOTAN wades in: I'm a big fan of Battlespace, here's some earlier catalogue scans!

THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO : RUNAWAY

A brief synopsis of the latest episode of TAG, hopefully without giving too much away.

This story features an experimental  high speed monorail locomotive with defective brakes -  sound familiar?

Obviously,  the plot is inspired by original Thunderbirds story, Brink of Disaster.

Thunderbird 1 is the star vehicle in this. The characters of Scott, John and Brains feature heavily in this enjoyable romp, and even grumpy teenager Alan gets a few lines.

Like all the new episodes we've seen, the pacing is as fast as the runaway train, but there are moments when the writers are adding a few nuggets of charactisation.

There's a few scenes which feature Grandma for no real reason other than to show her  serving her charred cookies and playing with Max!

The models are my usual point of contention which appear intensionally to  lack any realism, along with the sets that seem to take their inspiration from Postman Pat.

To sum up I did enjoy it, particularly for the characterisation aspects introduced.
Brains was a reluctant hero, and teenage Alan just wants to play video games. But the big reveal is that it looks like Grandma puts the pool loungers back in place after Thunderbird 1 takes off!

SOME ZERO X ART

Although most of us a familiar with the mighty space ship Zero X as drawn by Michael Noble, in the interests of variety here's some examples of other artists' interpretations as seen in some of the City Magazines publications..

The loose style of Jim Watson.

Captain Black's Zero X returning from Mars as drawn by John M. Burns.

Zero X in the TV Tornado Mysteron strip drawn by Tom Kerr

Catalan artist Ferran Sostres had a short spell drawing Zero X , with some borrowed panels from a previous Mike Noble Zero X strip.

Eric Eden also had a short stint on the strip while Mike Noble took a break.

One of the several TV21 Annual Zero X strips drawn by the distictive Ron Turner.

Bonus extra: Although its not from City Magazines, here's the scan that Kevin dug out featuring Zero X art from a News of the World Captain Scarlet strip drawn by John Cooper.

DAILY EXPRESS SPACE EXPLORATION WALL CHART

Like many of you, when I was a youngster my bedroom wall was covered in posters, some of which I've managed to preserve.

This Daily Express Guide to Space Exploration is one which has managed to survive which I remember buying in pre-decimalisation days from W.H. Smith's.

A lot of the information on it seems to come from the 1950's, and shows many ideas and designs that were prevalent in books throughout that decade.

The rockets featured are early I.C.B.M's or theoretical. 

A Chesley Bonestell inspired  'Wheel in Space' space station with Space Taxi.

Finally, a settlement on the Moon.

When I put this poster up on my wall in the mid sixties, I, like a lot of other youngsters, optimistically thought most of these ideas would be part of everyday life by the year 2000 .