One of the big surprises for me this Xmas was an amazing die-cast toy from my daughter and son in law.
The Jeek Tunneln from the UFO Commander 7 range by Shinsei of Japan circa 1976.
Its a beautiful thing, almost a work of art with many moving parts and a gorgeous blue, red and silver colour scheme. When I first handled it I thought immediately of Popy type die-casts.
The cockpit bubble elevates as does the rear attachment.
Two side launchers can be stood up and rotated. Mine is minus its missiles.
The huge drill bit at the front rotates too with a satisfyingly ratchetty sound. It is a tunneller after all and worthy of a place in TB2's pod!
I've just seen on Pinterest that it can do this as well, which I didn't know and for the life of me can't work out how its done! I've tried!
Here's the Shinsei Jeek Tunneln its is classic blister box, an image I found on Worthpoint, reminiscent of those wonderful Grip and Edai die-casts.
I can't imagine anyone else but the Japanese coming up with such a fantastic design. I'm sure there's some Gerry Anderson influence there and all in all it looks like a homage to everything we loved in Thunderbirds et al.
Here's the full range in a shop display courtesy of Chogokin - the Star Wars effect clearly visible in the marketing.
Interestingly there's a cloned range by Empire, the successors to Tarheel Industries, the American Project SWORD toy firm. Empire released Star Mites in the mid-Seventies and here's there Jeek Tunneln. I wonder if they had a licence from Shinsei?
Do you have any Shinsei UFO Commander 7 or any Empire Star Mites toys readers?
Is there a Manga/ Anime connection?
