MONSTROUS PLASTIC: THE HASEGAWA GODZILLA MINUS ONE MODEL KIT

Hasegawa has re-boxed one of their existing aircraft kits - the Kyushu J7W1 Shinden, to tie-in with the film.

The J7W1 actually appears in the movie, and the box art shows the aircraft diving past Godzilla. Kit number SP579 is in 1/48th scale.

The J7W1 was a bizarre Japanese canard design that never made it in to production. But it is a great looking plane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO28c16RuAY&t=149s

One photo of the box art, from Amazon.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

FULL STEAM AHEAD: FIXING UP A TUDOR ROSE STEAM ENGINE

 Hot on the heels of the Marx Police Car comes this lovely soft-plastic Tudor Rose engine kindly donated by Bill.

Very little was required to bring this old roller back into full service.

After a warm soapy bath ......

The roof was re-attached.

A wood glue bottle top, with a lick of blue, made for a nice new funnel.

With a replacement steering wheel from the bits box the engine turned away to enjoy its new rosey life.

Did you/ Have you got a Tudor Rose toy readers?

Next on the block is the bigger challenge of Topo Gigio's Ice Cream Van. Watch this cornet.

SAT WAITING

To be honest, I don't know what these are. they're in my photo archive from browsing Japanese toys and marked SAT car.

Very UFO, any ideas readers?

A BRUSH WITH THE LAW: RESTORING A 1960's MARX POLICE ESTATE CAR

As I mentioned Bill kindly gave me this battered bundle of plastic fun to mess with last week.

I started with the Marx Police Car bottom left.

Its based on a Ford Zephyr Mk.II Farnham from the early 1960's. Originally remote control, this poorly example was missing its remote cable and unit, its light, a wheel arch and wheel. The POLICE decal at the front was worn too.

Most of the grille support was missing as is the entire front bumper. The POLICE decal is virtually gone. Lots of faded chrome parts and the white trim of one tyre more or less gone too. The windscreen top left frame was partly missing. Oh and no aerial.

The rear POLICE blue decal was worn and overall the car was very very grubby.

So what should it look like? Here's a superb example I saw on Ebay. You can see the front bumper and so on.

So, with a view to displayability rather than perfection, I set to. I gave the car a thorough clean, stuck a strip of tape across the windscreen frame top, all chrome parts brushed with new chrome silver and a new front undergrille and wheel arch made from white card. A new wheel was installed at the front.

The front bumper was made from a plastic packet edge cut to shape and silvered. The new POLICE decal was Letraset rubbed onto clear sellotape.

The rear POLICE decal was touched up with paint.

A new red 'light' and washer base were glued on and a plastic needle made a decent-enough aerial.

I then cleaned the whole thing again with lighter fluid and a Q-tip to get any final marks off.

eh voila! Watch out bad guys!

This is how it looked before I started.

Keen to catch slippery baddies the spruced up Ford began its beat early.

Hope you like what I've done. It was a lot of fun!

I've just realised I've forgotten a front licence plate. Doh!

You can see the actual car itself, the old Ford Zephyr Mark. II Farnham Estate Police Car in this You Tube video clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocQSpdxCS70

GODZILLA MINUS ONE TRAILER

 What do you think?

The Toho Godzilla flick currently doing the rounds in the cinema.

GRRRRRR!

Will you be going?

SCREAM OF THE WOLF

 I'm on a bit of a Dan Curtis/ Clint Walker kick at the moment. Seeing Snowbeast the other night sparked it off.

I'm currently deep into the mulderous files of Kolchak's exploits, having just watched the two films and now embarking on the TV series.

By way of an umleitung I plan to watch Scream of the Wolf too. Like Snowbeast a few years later, its was a made for TV Movie from 1974 starring Clint Walker and Peter Graves. It originally played in the States on January 16th, 1974 at 8.30pm on ABC. 

Do you remember it on ABC? Where you still up then?

Not sure if this was on in the UK. I don't remember seeing it. Do you?

BOND BOXES: LICENCE TO FILL

In the 1960s there were two plastic kits of the James Bond Aston Martin DB5 'with modifications'. By Airfix and Aurora.

Aurora were famous for not identifying their model as the James Bond car anywhere on the box, but Airfix did not mention the make on their box top. This lack of clear identification seems rather odd.

Airfix, No.823, 1/24th Scale, Released 1966

The standard Airfix model, No.823, said 'James Bond Special Agent 007' on the box top. Only on the sides and ends of the box does it say Aston Martin DB5.

This kit was only listed in the 5th to 7th (1970) Editions of the Airfix Catalogue, after which the moulds were changed to represent a DB6 road car.

Airfix by Craft Master, No.007-200, 1/24th Scale

The US issue of the Airfix kit has 'James Bond Secret Agent 007', and 'Aston-Martin DB-5' on the box top. This is the only one of these 1960s James Bond kits that actually tells you on the box top what sort of car Mr Bond drives.

I assume the change in the wording from Special Agent to Secret Agent was to avoid confusion with the Special Agents of the FBI ?

The instructions for the Craft Master kit can be downloaded from Scalemates.

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/airfix-by-craft-master-007-200-aston-martin-db-5--181022

Aurora, No.585-249, 1/25th Scale, Released 1967

The box top says Aston-Martin Super Spy Car, but does not mention either James Bond or the DB5. This is especially odd as Aurora did official James Bond kits of Mr Bond and Odd Job, and the Super Spy Car was shown on the same catalogue page as the two figures, so Aurora were certainly not trying to hide the James Bond connection.

Listed in the 1967 and 1968 Aurora catalogues.

The instructions for this kit can be downloaded from Scalemates.

https://www.scalemates.com/products/img/5/1/1/1150511-51-instructions.pdf

This is totally a guess on my part, but... perhaps there was a rights issue with the name of the kit ?

Airfix did the James Bond car, which was sold in America by Craft Master, so perhaps they had the rights to the James Bond name for their car kit in the USA ? That might have left Aurora to come up with another name for their model.

Airfix did a James Bond and Odd Job double figure kit, which (as far as I know) was not sold in America by Craft Master. Aurora did separate kits of James Bond and Odd Job, but if these were not on sale in America alongside the Airfix versions there would have been no conflict with the Airfix kit, so perhaps Aurora only had the rights to the James Bond name for their figures ?

As I said, pure speculation on my part.

Four photographs from Worthpoint

Paul Adams from New Zealand

TADA! BANDAI TALKING SPACE GUN: AN XL5 VARIANT

Years ago I did some research into the Fireball XL5 rifle.

This is a relative by Japan's TADA.

Its the stupendous looking Talking Space Gun.

Its a Bandai toy as well.

I mean, c'mon, which kid wouldn't have wanted one of these on Christmas morning!

Move over Johnny Seven!