THE REAL CORGI ROCKET!

I saw this sleek blue vintage Jensen Interceptor on Ebay recently and I think I died and went to Heaven!

Being my favourite car, ever since I held the gloriously sleek miniature Corgi Rockets version as a kid, I very nearly pressed Buy It Now, but at over £35K I would have had to sell our house!

I'll just change my name I think. To Jensen. Jensen Interceptor!

What's your favourite car readers? Do you own one?

SLEIGH TIME

This mystery sled in my scrap box brought back a flood of memories.

As a kid I had the Action Man Explorer sled along with a pack of Huskies. Watch out the Polar regions, he we come!

Here's the 40th Anniversary release of the set I saw online.

There's some wonderful photographs of the original 1969 set on Action Man HQ.

https://www.actionmanhq.co.uk/action-man-vehicles/sledge-and-dog-team/index.php

Is it a set you had readers?

MINIATURE MARVELS

Miniaturisation is a difficult thing but I think the Japanese have it nailed.

These old Glico toys are perfectly formed works of art.

What do you think?

RADIO DAYS

 

This is yet another toy similar to my beloved Desert Jeep, this being the Radio Jeep!

I like how the passenger is holding a phone. Make that call!

Here's my original Desert Patrol Jeep. Do you have one?

Making Tracks at the Sale

 Not a great deal from this week's boot sale but its always enjoyable, especially now its Spring and the sun is shining a bit.

Left to Right are: old train signal, Stax Story cassette tapes Vols. 1 and 2, 1999 Scalextric car, two scrapper Superfasts, Toys R Us 'hot wheels' track for Junior and a A 1980's Childhood book for our daughter.

This caught my eye in the Charity shop nearby, an old ice cream making machine! I love old tech like this! Anyone ever made their own ice cream?

Matchbox Mayhem: Tank Battle in Miniature

Here is a mini diorama, built on the top of a matchbox, and featuring a pair of WW2 tanks - a German King Tiger, and a Soviet T-34/85. The scale is 1/700th, which is normally used for model ships.

What do you think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcjyHdDnQ44

Paul Adams from New Zealand

A HOME-MADE REVVERS TOWIN' TERROR: MOCK WHEELS

 This is on Wotan's Wants List, the elusive Hot Wheels Revvers Towin Terror.

Fetching an arm and a leg, I thought I'd have a go at making one for Wotan.

Taking a basic battered cheapo fire engine, this the finished product.

Little bits from the scrap box made for decent rear bed details.

Adding the crane seemed to bring it alive. The 'Rotring', [red ring] pen clasps stuck on each side were my little homage to Redline.

Front and back got a few coats of paint.

Real Revvers are powered by elastic bands. My mock revver doesn't work but I added one anyway for show.

The same with the rear tyre. Mines for show, the real ones wind up the band and ...

... away they go!

Hope you like this one.

Get Your Arts To Mars

 I've just realised, reading the comments about Jeff Waynes's album, that the Roger Dean illustrations are covered in his second art book - 'Magnetic Storm'. 

The first volume 'Views' was released in the back end of the seventies and includes his seminal work on the sequence of 'Yes' albums and other rock album classics and helped cement his artwork as the style of the period. Magnetic Storm followed much later and unfortunately, I think that Dean's ship had sailed a little by then, having been overtaken by other artists such as the great Rodney Matthews who illustrated the Michael Moorcock books and Peter Jones, who cornered the sci fi novel market.

Storms devotes an entire chapter to Dean's work on WOTW and shows his interpretation of the war machines. Unfortunately, as much as I love Dean's work, I don't think it's suitable for this story, as the tripods look a little too bird like and cumbersome. The art did however find its way into an Amiga computer game during the 16bit era, with game giant Psygnosis, who used publisher Paper Tiger's almost complete catalogue of fantasy art as the basis of both the games and the gorgeous box artwork.

Meanwhile, here are some shots of Dean's artwork from Magnetic Storms book.