G is for Go Space Trucking!

Really - 'futuristic' trucks!

 

Panhard 1951Titan IE 45 HL Pathe Marconi

 

This existed as one of several futuristic/novelty builds, used for advertising, or as crew-vehicles for teams or media outlets in the Tour de france or Grand Prix circuits of the 1940-50's, sometimes, like the Weiner mobile in the US.

General Motors 1964 Bison concept truck

Chevrolet 1965 Turbo Titan II concept truck

Ford 1966 Big Red Turbo concept truck

 

It's funny, but my childhood was quite liberally sprinkled with iconography related to 'space trucking'? From early articles in World of Wonder magazine on futuristic trucks, through the various multi-wheeled, articulated beasts in the backgrounds of strips or TV series like Dan Dare or Thunderbirds, through Deep Purple's hit, also Space Trucking, and my first Def Leppard album, bought from scrimped pocket-money; On Through the Night, which had a bog-standard 'big rig' rocking through space with a giant, tarpaulin'ed guitar on the flat bed, issued around the time of the most famous space trucker, no, not Han Solo (although - of course - he counts!), but Lone Starr, the mercenary in a Winnebago, from Space Balls!

 

There were a few images in the many sci-fi art books I had, the daft strip in 2000AD; Ace Trucking Co., and the equally interesting vehicles on the elevated freeways of Megacity One and the badlands of the Cursed Zone, and then, Mad Max (and a Plethora of straight to VHS knock-offs - the iconic Herkimer Battle Jitney being notable), while the above four were among many, swirling about in the background of the public conscience.

 

Latterly, we have had Fry and Leela, in Futurama, but they had a more 'conventional' spaceship! All the while, Matchbox, Corgi and Mattel (Hot Wheels) had been producing ever more whacky die-cast spacey trucks in an attempt to hold market share . . . but the dime-store guys had already been there, in the 1950's, before I was born!

 

I can't find this on Google, I'm sure it's been through the Internet at some point, probably various points, but apart from a slightly streamlined Ford saloon (sedan) car, also by Palitoy (for this is theirs), I couldn't find anything about it.

 

The front wheels are a little low, due to the ageing of the thin celluloid (?) belly-pan, which holds a crude steering system, and from, the warping of the plastic, not severe, but there, it must be contemporaneous with the aircraft, we've been working through since the early days of the blog, so the hope must be that more will be out there to find

Gilmark's fire engine (missing a ladder, I suspect, but so is every example I can find on Google!), is probably more accidentally futuristic, being 'just' a toy? The chassis designed - like Beeju's - to take different bodies/loads, and having a tip-back cab, so you can 'work' on the engine!

 

The beauty of all these dime-store types, whether military, civilian or space/futuristic, is that they go quite well with the smaller scales, and both these would suit 23-28mm figures, so your Giant, LB (Lik Be) or Airfix astronaut/space figures, through to role-playing stuff?

A couple of comparison shots, I have a few more dime-store type, rigid-bodied 'space trucks' in the collection, and we may have seen one or two over the years, and a bus (?), but this is my first 'Artic' (articulated/tractor-trailer) type wagon, and hopefully we'll return to them when they all come together, or I find more Palitoy efforts, or even a Gilmark ladder?

 

These both came in at the weekend, last, but I'm not doing a show-report, or, I might do one on the loose figures and bits, but most of what I bought on Saturday, was specifically for posts, given everything else is in storage now! "Go Space Trucking"!

M is for Military Marvels from 'Merika!

So, around the same time as the show the other week, I got a lovely parcel from the other side of the pond, and having covered the show a couple of weeks ago, and Peter's stuff from it, last week, it's time to show gratitude to Brian Berke, by sharing his plunder with the rest of the loyal readers, and we're starting with the military, in what was a vehicle-heavy donation.

This should be a Renwal readymade, very much in the same vein and size as the similar Airfix Attack Force, or stuff we've seen here from Injectaplastic, Jean Hoefler, Manurba or Norada, but this one isn't fully-marked, and has already led to a follow-up! It's quite 'space-tank'y isn't it?!!

 

Gilmark's Sherman behind and a lovely, early, polystyrene, US-made Lido jeep, trailer and gun in front. Following the pattern of the 25lbr and quads, I suspect some artistic licence from the 1950's dime-store supplier, with the very British limber added to a jeep, and a gun closer to the early war 37mm, which, although quickly rendered ineffective by advances in German armour, remained far from obsolete, retained as a very useful infantry support weapon, and which WAS towed by jeeps, among other tractor-vehicles.

 

It is a sad inevitability, that Royal Fail have to take their boatman's coin from pretty-much every parcel from Brian, Chris or Peter, and on this occasion it was the Auburn jeep which paid the price. No matter, I will glue it, and before the cyanoacrylate dries whitish, shoot it with the Airfix jeep for that post, on the Airifx blog.

 

Annoying though, as I'm pretty sure I have the original Auburn Rubber 'rubber' one somewhere (chunk of PVC), and having the polyethylene replacement turn-up is a fine showing of the other side of that coin!

Also the Auburn one I think, or 'based on', although we have seen various versions here over the years, not least the Banner, Bell, Lido and Merit ones, but unmarked and a clean mould-shot, so probably one of the US 'army man' issuers rather than Hong Kong's finest?

 

These on the other hand, are Hong Kong, but rather uncommon 'German' blue plastic, probably from Ri-Toys (Rado Industries), and one of their bagged or carded rack-toys of the 1970/80's, but equally possibly a sub-pirate, the tank being a cruder copy of the Blue Box one, than I remember Rado being responsible for!

 

Brian kindly put these to one-side when I mentioned them a while ago, and it's the Faun 6x6, NATO-era, 10-ton Bundeswehr truck from Roco Minitanks, with a load of assault boats and the larger rubber-boat.

 

Interestingly, I think that grey wheel, is the early sign of 'styrene-rot, and it's only the second time I've seen it, but on the other occasion it was A) also Roco product, and B) also from the 'States, probably AHM over-stamped stuff from the late 1960's? On that previous occasion, I rather blamed the climate in Florida - well, Americans themselves, seem to blame Florida for most things!

 

It's not like the brittleness of dying polyethylene, but more like the Mazak-rot you get in early die-casts, the grey bloom eventually getting fine cracks in it before crumbling, more like biscuit. As with other plastic diseases, I'm sure it's a batch thing, but whether it's down to too-high or low injection temperatures, incorrect operating-pressures or corrupting additives/inclusions . . . as yet, as far as I know, that work hasn't been done.

Many thanks to Brian for all these, and there will be more on the Renwall tank next!

G is for Gilmark . . . again!

I posted two of these back in 2017 after a nice exchange with Ed Burg over at Toys & Stuff, but another exchange had then already been in gestation since about 2009, to wit a pair of first version Airfix Attack Force Patton's leaving these shores in a swap for 'something nice', well, that something-nice was finally settled-on the other day, and here, courtesy of Ken Taylor (who doesn't have a Blog I can link to!) are the other two Gilmark's.

I say the "other two" as I believe they only did the four military models in their wider range of dime-store vehicles, although some of the 'space trucks' come in a  metallic khaki which could pass for 'army man' colours and may find their way into the collection at some point!

But today we're looking at the White's scout car and Priest SPG, both equipped with a 105mm gun. technically a Priest should have a 25lbr and be in UK service, this being a Howitzer Motor Carriage (HMC) M7.

While some of the US half-tracks were fitted with guns for close-in infantry support, I don't think a scout car was ever so fitted, and this has limited traverse depending on which side the out-worker has heat-welded the plug-in - on mine he can sit on the right-hand corners and fire out of the left-hand corners . . . I'll look for one with the opposite configuration; they were only a dime!

The Gilmark with a far more recent offering from late 'Hong Kong' or early 'China', the method of attaching the gun is very similar, a plug-in, whose spigot is melted back, underneath, to provide a permanent washer or hub to prevent it being pulled out. They were common enough at toy soldier and war-games shows in the mid-1990's for me . . .

. . . to hoover-up three of these un-attributed/generics for what was pennies! My gun line with the gun-less one we looked at back at the start of the Blog being used as a 'defrocked' ammunition-carrier, command vehicle or forward-observation-post . . . in the rear!

What I like about the cheapie, is that it pays full homage to the older one (possibly without knowing of the Gilmark at all) with no metal parts, it's 100% plastic and a worthy successor to the dime-store toys of the past.

While putting them away I was reminded of the thermal-printing on some of them. This post ought to be accompanied by a few Spencer Smith troops, especially as both the 'here' and the 'storage' lot have been combined now, but since the Ed post I have discovered I already had an armored car, located the gun-less hull above and lost both the two in that post!

When they all turn up (they haven't got far) I'll do a 'final' post, maybe next summer in the garden with enemy and such-like, these dime-store toys always look better en mass! Cheers Ken!

G is for Gilmark

These were one of the 'surprise extras' in a Parcel from Ed Berg the other day (I have to clear the pond before I can show you the 'main attraction'!) and they were the best thing to find in a parcel - two of the Gilmark AFV's.

This is the M4 Sherman; thermo-printed U.S.Army with the allied star down one side and marked Sherman M4 on the rear-plate it is definitely in need of a turret redesign, but for what it is, a dime-store toy of the 1950's it's fantastic! And, apart from the turret is not a bad rendition of a post D-day Sherman with the distinctive patches of appliqué armour on the hull-sides.

I've been after a Gilmark example for ages; you may remember we looked at a 'maybe' Tudor Rose (or Kleeware) version back at the Blog's beginnings, so I'd always wanted to place them side-by-side, as I knew the Gilmark one had black-plastic running-gear . . .

. . . while the 'British' one had body-matching plastic. However, the surprise - and what makes this present from Ed all the more gratifying - is that the track-units is where the differences start, not where they finish?

The 'copy' and the Gilmark differ in lots of subtle ways, the glacis-plate is at a different angle, giving the copy longer nacelles coming forward of the driver and observer hatches, the Gilmark has wider mud/track-guards, Copy has better carpet-wheels, redesigned to be less wobbly and therefore less likely to break-off . . .

. . . while more obvious differences also exist; the Gilmark has an stub-aerial on the rear-deck making full-traverse of the turret impossible, copy has no title block across the rear-plate . . . there's more (track teeth, headlights, taillights, smooth interior), you'll notice others in the photographs.

However . . . having compared all sorts of copies, homagé and obviously pantographed piracies over the years, I'm going to stick my neck on the line here and state I still think they are related, part of the 1950/60's mould-swapping than I mentioned again the other day and that Gilmark were aware of/involved in/with both versions.

The reasons for my thoughts on the matter are thus; that if a UK company was to copy (illegally) such an iconic vehicle (they were still in service all over the world at the time) the first thing they would do is improve the turret? Instead of which they have improved (obvious?) faults with the Gilmark original - hidden-wheels and aerial, while keeping the overall 'lines' of the toy intact?

I suspect that when the UK firm wanted the Sherman M4 removed from the mould it was found to be technically difficult as the 'S' and '4' are too close to the edges of the angled corners of the engine deck to get a decent grinding-tool in there without doing damage, so they were either given permission to produce a duplicate-mould tool . . . or sent one?

And that therefore, the differences were produced 'in-house' - as it were - the major ones being deliberate improvements, the minor-ones as vagaries in the final engraving/tool-finishing? If you don't study them both side-by-side (to an obsessively nerdy level!), they are intrinsically the same model.

Ed also sent me the armoured car and it's lovely! It's a bit fictional, the hull is quite Staghound-like, but the turret with its twin cannons is way out there. But for 'dime-store', 'old-school' war gaming, having two or three of these race up the MSR to retake the pontoon bridge before the other guy can get his lumbering Tiger's through the French village . . . quality toy!

And - let's be honest - it's more realistic (as an AA-Staghound!) than its nearest rival; the Tudor Rose Armoured car which is a Humber/Daimler/Rolls Royce hybrid with an egg-box turret!

Thanks Ed, a lovely present and the Tiny Trojans get to come out again! By the time the Blog's 25-years-old, they will have followed all the vintage, ready-made, small-scale AFV's into battle at least once, along with the odd space tank!

Ed's covered the photography much better than I can, here;

Sherman M4

Armoured Car

P is for Poplar Plastics (and Pyro?)

Normal service will be resumed in a day or two, in the meantime here's a couple more additions to the 1950's space fleet. I will re-do the last few posts in a more informative and ordered fashion soon.

On the left is a Poplar Plastics (UK 'Spaceship'), copy of a Gilmark (US 'Space Hawk') model, on the right is [probably not] a Tudor Rose (UK 'Rocketship') copy of a Pyro (? US) model, but being reversed colours to the Poplar, it could be another one of theirs? [I think it probably is - see above post] The Poplar is unmarked while the single engined one has the typical 'MADE IN ENGLAND' of Tudor Rose, and Poplar were based in Wales. It could also be a Kleeware design, or even Marx, they used bronzey colours on some of their readymade/dimestore stuff? Either way it's missing its dorsal fin!

S is for more Shermans

Mostly not actually Shermans, but AFV's on a Sherman Chassis, starting with three more Shermans though;

Front of the row is the Manurba Sherman I've posted before, this is a little on the big side at around 1:65 scale. Next is a pocket money toy, probably by Kleeware, it's marked 'Made in England' and is a UK produced Gilmark U.S. dime-store 'bin toy', proportions are all over the place! Final mark in the line-up is the Midori push-and-go clip-together model, also produced for/in Riko (Richard Kohnstam) packaging.

Comparison shot of the underside of two Midori Shermans, I don't know if there is any significance to the different wheels, i.e. Midori/Riko batches, or just a change of wheel/motor-unit supplier at one point, but some people like this type of variation when collecting old toys, and it means you get to keep both...because 'you MUST have them'!!!

Here we have a slush-cast Lee/Grant (you wanna decide which it's meant to be!!?) and a Rocco Tank Destroyer, the M3 has an antiqued finish like the pencil-sharpener in the previous post but is probably 30 years older - if it's a day!

Two Priest SPG's, the one behind is a contemporary Hong Kong one, the nearer one of the two is a Gilmark original, missing the gun-piece. Compare this to the UK issued Sherman at the top; track units are painted and the US produced vehicle has thermal printed markings.