M is for More on Rafael's Polymer Vehicles

These are in the opposite order to how I shot them as I'd photographed the tank -  as a quick follow-up to May's red tank - when I saw the transporter and bulldozer at a show-and-tell over Christmas, both have Adrian Little to thank for, Adrian's behind Mercator Trading, and has - as his adverts' state - very interesting toys!

'Made in France' . . . not! Lovely artwork and who remembers when roads were often made of concrete rather than bitumen? This is an export boxing of Rafael Lipkin's 'Mighty Antar' heavy haulage transporter in civilian colours with their bulldozer as a load rather than the usual conqueror tank.

Civilianised with the simple expedient of different coloured plastic, it's all in yellow and red, however there is a more colourful one (un-boxed and sans load) to be seen in Andrew Ralstone's plastics' book I seem to recall, and I think he has it listed as 'unknown French'?

Unlike the military pairing (link), where the tank is polystyrene to the transporter's polyethylene, here both vehicles are all-ethylene, with rubber tracks, although there is variance with the carriers wheels. They are from different production batches though, with the road-vehicle in a washier primrose-yellow, the earth-mover a more 'solid' shade.

As stated above, the wheels here are different to those on my example; being thinner, hard styrene (or a Bakelite material; it's not clear and I only handled it briefly). Otherwise this is identical to mine and carries the full Rafael Lipkin mark on the underside of the cab. The Bulldozer (like the tank) is unmarked.

The 'little man' is hidden by the axle, and photographing yellow can be as problematic as red, so I've had to stop this image down to the max, twice to get the MADE IN ENGLAND mark and LRL-logotype to show. I wonder if the hard-plastic wheels were produced across the channel to justify the 'Made in France' being printed on the box?

The winding handle (yellow) has broken, and the red thing is the exhaust-stack for the 'dozer, but of more interest in that the tool set is in two colours, the blue being possibly the colour of the vehicle in Ralston's book? The construction beast has a plug-in driver who may well be languishing in your 'unknown' zone?

I didn't think to see if they are two parts (driver and seat) but there look to be impossible undercuts for even a three or four-part mould, so it looks like they might have been heat-joined post manufacture?

I had previously shot this to show that the red tank (in need of wheels) I obtained at May's show (link) is covered on the box-art of the green tank, whether this meant there were sets with red transporter/AFV combo's or not I don't know, but a 'dirty-commie' combination is not beyond the imagination in the 1950/60's?

Note also that the labelling of the profile drawing is similar to the labelling of the 'French' box's artwork; they too, seem to have come from the same (British) printer!

The box carried a green one, and you can tell which one is in the box from the hole seen in the previous shot, which is punched through both side flaps and the closing-flap, to line-up and produce an open-window . . . or 'port-hole'!