Further to Arto's fascinating post on the Ideal Globemaster, I've just noticed that there is an excellent series of photos of this toy and some great info on our own Ed's fabulous website Toys and Stuff:
Look at that boxcar - is it not a dead ringer of our dear TB2?
The overall shape which with minor adjustments would turn into that chubby fella, the opening front which reminds me of an opened TB pod with ramp and all, but especially the similarity of textures both on the chequered body and on the striped tail fin. The most important thing from the likeness list: it's all in the eyes! The line of four squinty windscreens zeroing on the potential threat and ready for rescue!
The Ideal plane was released as Globemaster Flying Boxcar
Looking at the toy itself, the resemblance is not as striking as in the catalog photo because of different materials and of the colour scheme. Perhaps Derek Meddings leafed through the Ideal '58 toy catalog and that stuck with him!
This might already be common knowledge among anderson aficionados, but wanted to share nevertheless as the similarity is (at least to my eye) so striking.
Cheers
Arto
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Woodsy's Footnote:
Arto has struck a chord here.
Looking at the 'pod' vehicles in the Globemaster a little closer I was amazed to see the Jeep and the Radar truck!
The movie Thunderbirds Are Go is a must see for SWORD Fans. Its all about Zero-X after all!
The movie Thunderbird 6 has much to offer too. Besides the amazing Skyship 1 there are some beautiful models too.
I've discussed Brains' tantrum in Thunderbird 6 many times on the blog. Its a painful watch as the angry boffin destroys three superb model craft, all of which were his prototypes [or were they maquetes?] for Thunderbird 6.
If you haven't seen it here's a handy montage of the three models being thrown on the floor, which I found on You Tube.
There is a toy connection to the red model shown above. It involves the Tarheel and Durham toy companies of North Carolina, USA. I first talked about it here years ago and was chuffed to have the idea included in the latest copy of the Gerry Anderson based fanzine ANDERSONIC.
Its interesting to note that the clip's You Tuber has also commented about the potential numbering of these three models if they had all become part of the fleet. Thunderbirds 6, 7 and 8!
This isn't the first time we've seen a Thunderbird 7. Certainly not in the model/toy world. Imai released a Thunderbird 7 in the 1980's.
We now know that this is actually the Snow Train from the Project SWORD universe and more exactly its the Snow Train with its heat shields up ready for magma diving as seen in the Project SWORD Annual.
In this shielded form its called the BEETLE.
Like the red Thunderbird 6 in the clip the Beetle would have made an excellent friction drive toy. Its a real shame that Century 21 Toys never released it as part of the Project SWORD toy range [although C21 did licence the Imai model].
We can get an idea of what a JR21 Beetle might have looked like in this superb mock-up done by collector Ferryman in 2009.
The actual model was released by Imai in orange plastic and intriguingly in plain white.
I shall write about the white version at a later date.
I've made the next gadget in McCoy's medikit. The spray healer. This was made from aluminium tube and detail added with scored aluminium tape and scrap bits!
These are my toy Daleks, fine examples of how good modern toys can be. These are really good replicas and even though they're only 4 or so inches tall, the black one is radio controlled!
Mini Capitan Boy was a Mexican hybrid of SpaceX toys and miniature Billy Blastoff toys.
I first stumbled across it last year on You Tube in a video about toy firm Lili Ledy.
Beyond this new information has been scant about this unusual brand of toys.
However it is possible from the film to see some of these Mexican toys quite clearly. One of these is the miniature Scout Car pictured here from an online auction. But just how small is it?
The mini Billy Blastoff figure is 1.5 inches tall according to a Worthpoint auction listing.
Guessing how small the scout car toy is can be estimated from this.
It would appear to be 2 to 3 inches long to me.
Also this group shot below has several mini Billy Blastoff figures.
For a sense of just how scaled down the range was compare the normal sized Billy Blastoff Scout car centre left and the Mini Capitan Boy version front centre above the letter T in the word ROBOTIN.
You can also compare large and small versions of the rest of Billy's range too including the Walker and the buggy with pincers at the front.
Another possible yardstick of size is this similar little red Scout Car knockoff which appeared in several LP and Apollo Moon Exploration style sets like this pictured.
This could very well be the same scale as the Mini Capitan Boy toy.
Fortunately its dimensions and features have been beautifully catalogued on blog friend Paul V's Triang Spacex Toys website.
Looking at the dimensions on Paul's site the orange scout car may be smaller than the Mini Capitan Boy version. Its hard to say without having them side by side.
Its interesting to note that Paul's site also features one of the Mini Capitan Boy Spacex-based toys, the T-5 Tractor lookalike with the double launcher
This is clearly visible in the Lili Ledy film on You Tube. Here's a still. The double missile launcher yellow tractor is just behind the front P3 helicopter.
Comparing the sizes on Paul's brilliant site, its also interesting to note that the dimensions of this toy were slightly bigger than the Tri-ang SpaceX T-5 and Golden Astronaut Terrain Tiger originals.
Were all the Spacex-inspired toys in the Mini Capitan Boy range slightly bigger than the Tri-ang/ Multiple Toymakers versions?
We will just have to wait for a Lili Ledy Mini Capitan Boy range to surface before we'll know exactly what the rest of Spacex-inspired vehicles look like, how big they were and if and how the little spaceman could sit on them!
