About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Monday, September 2, 2024

F is for Follow-up - Space Cars

Except they are more future-past cars, which look nothing like what we are driving now, nor will ever drive, being firmly locked into the 1950's aesthetic they were born out of! And while we're revisiting what were badged-up to Tallon, last time we looked at them, without any packaging, they are really 'just' Manurba!
 
I bought these from a mate on Saturday, although we haven't agreed an amount yet, and I won't actually pay for them until the BP Sandown Park toy fair next Saturday (put it in your diary now), but they are here and photographed, which is most of the battle won!

Blue instead of yellow, this time, and it's beginning to look like there's just the three sculpts? However, it is still up in the air and the canopy note last time - which was only musing - can probably be corrected to coloured canopies = Manurba/Tallon, and clear canopies = Hong Kong clones? As you can clearly see there are three different colours of canopy in this sample, which is what I was 'remembering' the HK ones to have had!


DC 77


RS 17


ZA 567
 
That's it really, it was mostly said last time, they all have a moniker/code name, and impossible speed stat's on their undersides, and we will revisit them again when the HK ones come out of storage, and we can look at them all together. In the meantime, here's a few bubble-canopy concept cars from that there Interweb;
 
1955 Ford Beatnik Bubbletop


1956 Buick Centurion Concept 1

1961 Ford Thunderbird 'Thunderflite' Bubbletop

Fictional car from a boy's annual or illustrated magazine . . . 1975, heehee!

 
None are particularly close matches for these toys, but the influence is undeniable, and they may be more closely based on other designs of the era, Dark Roasted Blend is a good source of images for this kind of stuff. There are many more, including more double-bubble canopies, of which the most famous is . . . 
 
. . . the 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car . . .
 
. . . upon which Batman's original 'Batmobile' car was based.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ian Roussels Thunder car.



Hugh Walter said...

I had to Google it, but yeap, that's the beast! Cheers Anon!

H

Anonymous said...

Cheers!