Just Keep Rollin'

Its been an exciting month here on Mars Base, as for the first time in seemingly forever, a Spacex II model appeared. Not unfortunately, one of the extant models, but one that I only had as a loose and incomplete specimen. What made this appearance even more exciting was the fact that there were actually two models and both still carded!

In order to grab the toys it required a three man team involving international co-operation! As it happened, Woodsy spotted the toys on a small ads site in Europe. He alerted me and after a failed attempt to register my intention to buy on the website - thank you Brexit - we called upon the skills of Paul Vreede, Spacex collector extraordinaire. Luckily, Paul was already registered with the site and was able to contact the seller and expedite a sale.

Both models had the cards with them, although one had become detached and the blister compromised. I took the loose model and Paul bought the sealed one, which you can now see at: http://www.triangspacextoys.info/SpGApack/PppnPcks/MBugCard/MbugCrdF.html

The Moon Buggy is one of the few models issued with a die cast base and also comes with a seated astronaut, much bigger than the standard models. The pack contains a golden astronaut and one of the red Spacex Commander badges, which echo the Project SWORD toys in their style.

The toy is one of the models issued by Pippin toys around the time that Tri-ang were heading for dissolution and the card shows another of the missing models - the Rocket Transporter.

The illustration on the card is easily identifiable as one from the NASA archives, showing the early lunar rover design by Grumman.

The image comes from the Magpie ABC of Space book, by the great Peter Fairley, a common sight on TV in the mid sixties and seventies, as science editor fo major news channels in the UK. 

The card states that the action feature includes 'soft wheels' which refers to the innovative cone shaped wheels which were intended to deform and accomodate the lunar terrain, or to prevent the vehicle sinking into what was suggested might be deep tracts of moon dust. The model itself has rigid wheels with lots of small plates on the rim, something which are prone to damage, as can be seen on my earlier model, which arrived minus driver too. We can only hope that the last three missing designs turn up soon!

Far Horizons

Well, bringing out the Inside Information book led me to delve deeper into the bookshelf and put me in quite the nostalgic mood. As I have often mentioned, my dad was a huge fan of aircraft (and trains and ships to a degree) and encouraged me to look at different types of aircraft, both in books and in models. My chief love has always been space, but something of my fathers fascination with the majesty and awe of planes rubbed off on me. So when I was scouting for vintage space books online, a while back, I found a couple of very early sixties, children's books which took me right back to my childhood. 'Timothy's Book of Space and Aircraft' by Collins, showed a small boy being educated in aerospace technology by his dad, in a fine period style - dad in trilby and sports jacket and little Tim in shorts and sandals. The painted illustrations by T.E North make up for their lack of technical accuracy with dynamism and drama - especially the English Electric Lightning on the Aircraft cover.

The space book is written by Maurice Allward, who went on to write the excellent Daily Mirror Book of Space and the 1968 Encyclopedia of Space. Again, the paintings are a little garish and naive in places, but show what astronautics were like in the early sixties. Both books are undated, but the Space one shows the projected Mercury mission, which puts it at the very start of the decade.

The book goes through the usual history of space travel from ancient myths to chinese rocket warfare, before looking at Robert Goddard and on to captured V2 technology.

Allward is always excellent on technical detail and the less well known aspects of space travel and swiftly moves on to projected plans for the future, with Von Braun spacewheels and huge lumbering moon landers.

Like many of his contemporaries, there is the view that life exists on other planets and its simply a question of time before man visits the planets and teaches those upstart aliens a thing or two about british stiff upper lip and all that! What?!

 

The aircraft book is illustrated by North, but the text is  uncredited, but may be by Allward too, who also published aeronatical texts.

There are some lovely big sky renditions of the cutting edge aircraft of the day, such as the Vulcan and Valiant, plus a look at a 'large airplane factory' where Timothy meets a typical aircraft pilot, replete with neatly trimmed moustache and smoking a pipe.

Once more there are full page paintings of great aircraft, accompanied by somewhat twee text, very much the product of its time. On the cover, Timothy looks to have aged somewhat and the paintings are a little less soft than the space book, but it is still a nice, nostalgic read from a period when Britain had a foothold in the aeronautics industry.

VIRGIL ABLOH'S MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

I love this toy photo, which I saw on Robb Report [what is that?]

These look like modern re-issues of MOTU figures - Skeletor and friends? -  but its the golden lighting in the shadow that I like so much.

Do you like it?

Tanks for Everything

 As the recent post about the Swedish 'S' Tank caught our attention, I was reminded of the first time I came across it in the excellent book series 'Inside Information'. Eagle comic illustrator Lesley Ashwell Wood often produced large spreads in the comic of various fictional and real life vehicles and in the seventies, his artwork was featured in a small book series by Benwig Books. The first one I got as a lad was naturally Space Exploration, but I followed it up with a couple of others, as I was impressed with the cool colour paintings. One of my other favourites was the Tanks volume and I have scanned it here. Its showing its age now and some of the scans are a little dirty, but its easy to see the appeal.

Re-Light My Firefly

To follow on from the Eldon Touch Command post, here is a slight update on an earlier post.

The Bandai Jet Bulldozer toy was missing its tracks and had sustained some damage to the chrome pipes at the rear and the remote control wasn't working properly, but it was still a good toy. Luckily, I managed to win it with no opposition. A little dusty, but apart from a few slight melts where the cable from the remote had decayed the plastic, it was in great condition. I found a pair of spare tracks off a toy tank and repaired the pipes as best I could and it looks great. The motor works fine, but the cable on the remote is too far gone to be useable. The steering is operated by air pressure, a small bellows inside the body moves a lever which disengages one set of tracks. The blade raises and lowers as it rolls and there is a light inside the cockpit. The toy is made by Bandai and is probably late sixties, early seventies. Its featured before on the blog, as the body was 'borrowed' for the Mortoys Six in One set.

 The remote connected to the rear of the toy with a three point connector, this had unfortunately perished and I will need to build a whole new cable and airline to use it.

 At the same time I won the Jet Bulldozer, I also managed to find a partial kit of the Imai Firefly which was missing its tracks too.

 The remote control has levers for reverse and steering by air pressure.

 Finally to show the actual large size of the toy, here it is sat next to the SWORD Moon Ranger.

Firefly toys in comparison to Imai Excavator models.

Firely and the 'space truck element from the Mortoys Six in One set.

DUCK! ITS THE MICKEY MOUSE FIRE ENGINE

I was interested to see this Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck Fire Engine on the Hanson's auction site

https://hansonslive.hansonsauctioneers.co.uk/images/lot/1034/10342_0.jpg?1570361642

TM brand. Is that Modern Toys?

It looks exactly like the same design as the Tarheel Fire Engine.

The design must have done the rounds!