Crazy Motors

These little Crazy Motors look really well designed. 

This little chrome jet ambulance is fabulous. It could be straight off the Jetsons!

It's a big range and here here's a few more Crazy Motors. Which do you like? 

Hinstar Space Station

 This Hinstar toy space orb looks super!

It opens up like a flower!

Have you anything like this? 

Brian Johnson R.I.P.

News is filtering through that special effects director, Brian Johnson has sadly passed away.  

Our sincere condolences to his family and friends. 

Hanky Panky

I saw this on auction. From 1965, I reckoned it was a Thunderbirds hanky, but the description said ...

Printed on a heavy woven substrate, the surface exhibits a distinctive textile texture. It is displayed in a frame with overall dimensions of approximately 18 × 17 inches.

Sounds like a canvas or sacking!

Aurora's Sealab on the Moon

Hi Woodsy,

I am currently reading a wonderful book called Aurora Monster Scenes – The Most Controversial Toys of a Generation, by Andrew P. Yanchus (who worked at Aurora in the 1960s and 1970s) and Dennis L. Prince, StarComm Publications, 2014. 

While it is mainly about the Monster Scenes kits from 1971, there is a lot of information in it about other Aurora projects.

In the 1970s Aurora was looking for ways to cut costs, and get some additional use out of its older moulds. One of these was the US Navy Sealab III underwater research facility.

This kit, of a real underwater research base, had not sold well, and the moulds had been expensive. According to Andy Yanchus, some thought had been given to ‘providing a new Moon terrain base and some space-suited astronauts’, to turn the kit in to a Lunar outpost.

That sounds like a great idea to me, but it does not look as though this was ever more than a suggestion. There are no illustrations in the book of what the proposed Lunar Outpost might have looked like, or what colour it might be.

The Sealab kit has a copyright notice on the underside of its seabed base for Aurora Plastics Corporation, 1970. Kit number 721-400 (the price extension to the number means that this was a $4.00 kit), was only in the Aurora catalogues for 1970 and 1971.

In 2017 the kit was re-issued by a company called Masterpiece Models. As the original mould had been destroyed, a new mould for the kit had to be created.

The kit was again re-issued by Doll and Hobby Georgia in 2024, so you could make a do-it-yourself version of the Lunar Outpost. The only problem might be finding some suitable Astronaut figures to go with it, as the Sealab was moulded in the odd scale of 1/93rd.

There might be some 1/87th scale HO model railway figures that would work with the kit (perhaps modern firemen in fireproof suits and breathing gear ?). It might also work with HO/OO Airfix Astronauts, if these were posed in the foreground ?

Two photographs from Worthpoint

Paul Adams from New Zealand

A Month of German Grub

Somewhat tangential and before I delete them ( Mr. Google is badgering), I thought it might be fun to post pics of some of what we ate out in Germany. Unser Essen.

Many are traditional German meals mixed with Italian and Greek dishes, together with a friends' fabulous cooking. 

Some salads? yes! 

We didn't cook for a month!

For fun, let us know if there's anything here you'd eat too!

🌭

Dressed green bean onion and iceberg salads and wedges, Spiegelei (fried egg),

Pulleken beer

Friends' dining table, Nordrhein Westfalen

Fried grated potato cakes or Kartoffelpuffer , apple sauce ( the Missus' fave)

Marinated pickled pork or Sauerbraten, rotkohl, napkin dumplings

East German Beer, fanta

Spaghetti Eis.

Frozen whipped cream in the centre!

Das Beste!

Spaghetti and sauce, buttered asparagus, mozzarella balls.

Friends' commune garden, Hessen

Sauerbraten, Spätszle

Sauerbraten, bread dumplings

Salad

Spaghetti Bolognese (I think)

Pizza Frutti di Mare or Meeresfruchte (my fave pizza)

Fanta, Aperol Spritz

Bakery Chain German breakfast

Greek Gyros, grill and Tatsiki

Pommes mit Mayo

Weinsauerkraut Salat mit dressing

Dutch lunch

Frikandel sandwich, Schnitzel sandwich

Hot Chocolate and cream

Kaffee und kuchen.

Kaffee was late.

My new fave soft drink, Mezzo or more generally, Spezi.

Coke and orange Fanta.

Prößt!

🍻

Oh Bruder!

 You know those cool little Bruder space toys?

Well here's an entire set I saw online, complete with neat space figures too. 

Batalha No Espaco.

There's 9 vehicles and 9 figures.

The heads have a Vaderesque look.

The box rear is wow! 

What a brill boxed set! 

Have you got any Bruders?

MODELS ON DISPLAY AT PROJECT JOHNSON

 Some photos I took of part of the model display at the recent Project Johnson UFO event.

Sky 1 built by Mamas Pitsillis, and studio scaled to the larger Sky 1 original surviving prop.

Small original screen-used Interceptor prop owned by Jim Winch.

Large SHADO Lunar Module, built by Pete Hutton.

Skydiver model built by Sanjay Rampal.

Large remote-controlled SHADO Mobile built by Mamas Pitsillis.

Some of the other surviving props.

Original SID 2 model, seen in the UFO episode, 'The Man Who Came Back'. Owned by Jim Winch.

Original Ambulance model, first seen in the UFO episode,' Identified'

Harlington-Straker van, seen in some of the studio building establishing shots.

One of the two surviving UFO models used for long shots, hence the lack of detail. (I understand one of our regular readers is familiar with this model!)

Finally, a group shot of the people who made the display possible.

From left to right: Jim Winch, Sanjay Rampal, Mamas & Linda Pitsillis, Pete Hutton and Steve Bullen.