Another reminder of some revisited photos of the pre-production Sixteen 12 Micro Eagles I took way back in 2020, beginning with the Rescue Pod Eagle.
The Rescue
Pod first appeared in the episode, ‘Earthbound’, and continued to feature on
Space: 1999 publicity material, and a selection of merchandise.
As far as I
can tell, there’s no indication as yet as to when the actual finished items
will be shipped. Not totally surprising considering all the setbacks the last year has brought,
but at a tad under forty quid each, I think it’s a fair assumption these
individual Micro Eagles will be a sell out when they finally arrive.
As I said in
my previous Micro Launch Pad post, these are just the pre-production models so
expect the final models to be a higher spec. In saying that, the pre-production
models still look pretty good, with plenty of detail.
As with the
Launch Pad set, the Micro Rescue Eagle will come with a tiny in-scale
Moonbuggy.
He worked for full size car maker General Motors, for North American on the Apollo programme, as a custom car designer, and served in the US Navy.
He then became a kit designer for Monogram, producing some of their widest model car kits in the 1960s and 1970s. His most famous model was the Red Baron, a Model T hot rod topped with a WW1 German helmet. Did you have one?
This was made in the standard 1/24th scale, a super-sized kit in 1/12th, and later as a Hot Wheels die-cast. The video shows many of his models, and a great selection of box tops.
Alas, not everything, as Tom Daniel designed around 75 models for Monogram. Even though I was never into hot rods, I really enjoyed this video. As always, Mr Max has done a great job on it.
Will you get a kit this Christmas?
(1) Tom Daniel: master kit car designer - YouTube
Paul Adams from New Zealand
A while back I was sent a few photos taken by a Facebook friend, who prefers to keep a low profile, and had seen and commented on my Sixteen 12 Swift photos. It later transpired that I had crossed paths with him at a couple of past Anderson events, where he was usually sat at the same table as Eagle designer, Brian Johnson. I asked him if he'd be happy for me to share some of his photos as I think they are of real interest here.
To give some back ground to the photos, he spends a fair amount of time in Los Angeles, and some time in the past, he ha met and worked in the custom body shop of Batmobile builder , George Barris, and very briefly bumped into Dean Jeffries, who created the TV Green Hornet's Black Beauty.
This is him with the Black Beauty at the Petersen Museum. He actually helped manoeuvre it into position last year!
The other photos are selection of photos he took in L.A. showing the various custom vehicles created for TV & Film productions, including The Landmaster from Damnation Alley, The General Lee Dodge Charger from The Dukes of Hazzard, and various vehicles from Logan's Run.
My grateful thanks to him for allowing me to share these photos.
I picked up a vintage Pan paperback copy of Get Carter in a charity shop the other month. Dated 1970 its this film tie-in Michael Caine cover version of the Ted Lewis novel Jack's Return Home.
I've seen the film before with Michael Caine and Ian Hendry but never read the novel. I knew the film was an important milestone in British gangster films so I was excited about reading the original book.
Trying to put the characters from the film out of my mind I set off reading. I wasn't disappointed. Its a cracker of a thriller deftly mixing late 1960's East End London violence with the provincial crime lords of Newcastle. Its a heady crescendo of double-barrelled standoffs and reminded me of the grit and gunshot of The Long Good Friday I saw on film years ago with the great Bob Hoskins.
Coincidentally whilst reading Get Carter the 2000 US version starring Sylvester Stallone was on TV so I watched it for research purposes. I must say I enjoyed it but then again I do like Sly Stallone and his portrayal of Carter had a hint of that other American hard-case Porter played by Mel Gibson in Payback, itself a 1999 remake of the sixties classic Point Blank starring Lee Marvin.
I found Mickey Rourke's presence in the US Get Carter movie fascinating as always. Being 21 years ago he was only part way towards his monstrous transformation into the beast we see 10 years later in Iron Man 2.
Back to the paperback, I'm nearly finished as it reaches its climactic end on the slag heaps of the North East coast. I may have to track down the other vintage Jack Carter novels that Ted Lewis wrote, plus his others like GBH.
Have you read or seen Get Carter readers? It would have made a great Action Man set, the slick suit and the double-barrel rifle! What do you think?
As there still seems to be plenty of interest in my revisited Sixteen 12 Space: 1999 photos, here’s another look at the photos of the pre-production Sixteen 12 Micro Eagle Transporter & Launch Pad.
I took them
way back in April, 2020, not long after the first Covid 19 lockdown in England,
so I had plenty of time to photograph this, and the other Micro Eagles in the
set. The last I heard the finished products were in production. I should
imagine they are almost, if not ready for shipping. Obviously, like pretty much
everybody, Sixteen 12 has been affected by logistics problems. But in spite of
that I think it’s fair to say they’ve been pretty good at keeping things moving
as they get them in.
Even though
it’s the pre-production model, it still looks impressive. It’s a pretty big toy/model, around 2’ long
including the service section with the pad around 18” across. It features
launch pad landing lights and dialogue from the series.
The big pull
for me is the electronic working docking tube.
It comes
with a 5” highly detailed Transporter
Eagle with a detachable Transport pod and aluminium engine bells. The
pre-production models are naturally of lower quality, but even those look
pretty good to me.
The set even
comes with a tiny in-scale Alpha moon buggy to leave carelessly parked on the
edge of the Launchpad!
