MOONBASE CENTRAL

Thursday, 4 December 2025

Tamiya Apollo 1 Copycats

I saw an Aoshima Apollo rescue vehicle kit. Googling led me to a history of NASA rescue vehicles and I nearly choked when I saw one that looked exactly like my beloved Tamiya Apollo 1 tank!

It was only on further reading, that I discovered it was a 1990s design, so a case of Life imitating Art, instead of the other way around!

Seeya,

Looey

THE MPC MONKEEMOBILE AND FRIENDS

Although I'm cutting back on what I blog here for various reasons I note that there's been a recent post about the MPC Monkeemobile, something which I covered in far more detail a few years back.

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2022/06/heyhey-here-comes-my-mpc-monkeemobile.html

A couple of years earlier I also did a piece on my Corgi Monkeemobile.

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2019/04/monkeemobile-mania.html

And thanks to reader Dave C, who I met up with at one of the Cromford events, a short piece on The Sisters of Mercy video.

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2022/06/monkeemobile-featured-in-sisters-of.html

And who can forget the 'new' Monkeemobile.Mustang GT.

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2022/02/hey-hey-its-new-monkees-plastic-kit.html

For anyone in the UK who wants to watch the odd episode of Monkees, they are being shown on Rewind TV, with one or two other vintage series like Star Maidens, Blue Thunder, Fantastic Journey, Bewitched, and I Dream of Jeanie. The GTO that Major Nelson (Larry Hagman) used in I Dream of .Jeanie was later customised and used as a second Monkeemobile for promotional tours.

WE'RE TOO BUSY BUILDING THE MONKEEMOBILE MODEL KIT

The Monkees was a US TV comedy series about a struggling music group, made up of four young men, and pretty obviously modelled on The Beatles. The episodes always included musical numbers, and the group released several albums and singles.

It aired on the NBC network from 1966 to 1968, and was followed by the movie Head (1968). Much later there was another series called The New Monkees (1987).

In some episodes the boys had a custom car, a heavily modified Pontiac GTO, designed by Dean Jeffries. A 1/25th scale model of this was released by MPC in 1967, kit number 605-200. There were also die-cast versions by Corgi, and a mini version initially released in the Husky line (sold only in Woolworths in Britain), and later as a Corgi Junior.

During the 1960s and 1970s Airfix released a number of US kits in Britain under its own name. One of these was the Monkeemobile, in 1967 (according to Scalemates) or 1968 (according to Vintage Airfix). On checking the Internet Archive, I found it listed in the News from Airfix section of Airfix Magazine, December 1967. Model number 831 was a Series 8 kit, and part of the Elite series of large scale car models.

It was not cheap, at 16/6 (16 shillings and 6 old pence - 82 1/2 New Pence). It was fairly short-lived as an Airfix kit, only appearing in the 6th and 7th Edition catalogues. The box top was almost the same as the MPC release, with a photo of the Monkeemobile, and a group photograph of the four Monkees in the background. The Airfix name replaced MPC.

The oddest thing about this release is that Airfix changed the scale. US MPC boxes say 1/25th scale, but the British Airfix boxes say 1/24th scale. It was the same kit.

The MPC version has been re-issued a number of times in different boxes, the later versions all dropping the photo of the band members. In 1976 MPC released a modified version of the model as the Fonz Dream Rod, with a figure of the Fonz himself, from the TV series Happy Days. Even though the GTO was a 1960s car, and Happy Days was set in the 1950s.

Wikipedia entry on the car.

Monkeemobile - Wikipedia

Kit assembly instructions, from Scalemates.

MPC772 Monkeemobile Instructions (scalemates.com)

Vintage Airfix listing.

'Monkeemobile' - 831 (vintage-airfix.com)

The Box Art Den has a section devoted to old catalogues, one of which includes the Airfix version.

airfix 68 32-960 (boxartden.com)

Airfix Magazine December 1967, from the Internet Archive.

Airfix Magazine Dec 67 : Airfix : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Four photos in total, in two batches, all from Worthpoint.

Have you got a Monkeemobile?

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Metallic And Coloured Project SWORD Task Force Variations

This is a post from several years ago but I've found it languishing in my drafts so I'd thought I'd fire it off

Merging several old posts together, I have here brought us right up to date on the various Project SWORD metallic/ chromed toys.

Years ago Dennis Nicholson sent me some photo's of a his friend Kelly Lannan's beautiful and unique metallic gold Task Force 3. I have wondered about it ever since. Is it a knockoff or is it a colour variant from Tarheel? There is no maker's mark or number on the undercarriage so no clues there.

In 2011 Bill kindly photoshopped a dome into place for me and we can see what it looked like completed below. I have inserted John Eaton's latest fabulous pictures of the new silver Task Force 3 for comparison. What differences can you see?

Bill B mentioned that he had owned a rare metallic blue Task Force 1. We were treated to an Ebay picture of Bill's toy - below - yesterday and also when the blog first launched. Could this be related to the two metallic silver/ gold Task Force 3's we now know of? Was it carded? Some evidence of all of them having backing cards came in Patron Zero's comment on the blog in 2014 here.

Daydreaming further I have photoshopped two of the loose toys together into the same shot to help you decide yourselves. I have added a Tarheel logo simply as garnish, no other reason. If all of the metallic SWORD toys are related then the next question is whether there is a metallic Task Force 2 as well? The mind boggles! What do you think readers?

For the sake of completeness here are further Task Force 3 pictures from the blog's archives including the standard Century 21 and Tarheel versions, together with the rare boxed SL knockoff.

Above:

Top: C21 Task Force 1 and 3

Middle: Blue TF1 and Green Tarheel NOVA [Bill B]

Bottom: Tarheel Task Force 1,2 and 3 [Astronit], which all came bubble carded.

Above

SL boxed Task Force 3 [Woodsy]

Metallic colouring wasn't just confined to Project SWORD. Spacex-mania generated these neat but rather cheapo knockoff 'Futuristic Space Vehicles' too!