I cannot recall exactly where I first encountered this vehicle design but am fascinated by it, and spent a couple fruitless hours nosing around the web last night trying to pin down exactly which pre-Boeing Lunar Roving Vehicle it was based on. Will keep looking, but I was able to ascertain that the variant in gold with the shorter wheel spokes is derived from the "Billy Blastoff" Moon Crawler by Japanese toy company Eldon, the black version based on the "Major Matt Mason" Moon Crawler by Mattel.
Which is of significance as Major Matt Mason's crawler was first made available in 1966, Billy Blastoff's in 1968. So the earliest each respective vehicle would have been manufactured as these uber-simplified Hong Kong plastic mould toys would be those years.
The black crawler is nearly identical to the vehicles included in Imperial Toy Corp's "Apollo Moon Exploring" toy sets which are dated to 1970. However, the half-astronaut forms on the AME crawlers are chromed. This example's plain white half-astronaut looks more like the earlier made LP Toys versions, added confusion being that LP likely manufactured the pieces from the AME sets themselves (or made the moulds available to another company). So it's just as likely the black variant is a later copy whose half-astronaut never got chromed. Since it was obtained loose with no packaging material there is no way to confirm anything, other than the astronaut is not chromed and there are no markings on it whatsoever.
and
The view screen on the gold example is a implication of Billy Blastoff's portable computer unit which fits into notches on the panel in front of the driver. Major Matt Mason's has no view screen and its driver is seated nearly perched on the leading edge, as is on Major Matt Mason's crawler. The other interesting difference is that the gold variant is cast in a hard plastic, the black in a softer semi-flexible Army Man plastic.
Have not tried to remove the yellow astronaut yet but that's how he's kept in place. The only other moving parts are the wheels.
... Vague resemblance to the Palmer Plastic's Gemini Program space figures ...
Wheels fitted onto a simple post which is part of the chassis. So it has a grand total of four pieces: Chassis, two wheels, and the spaceman.
NEATO!!!
Black cast variant somewhat smaller than the gold crawler.
Zero markings. This assembly more complex with five pieces: Chassis, two wheels, axle bar and astronaut, and the spoke wheels actually sort of turn if one pushes down while moving it forward/backward. Kind of.
The two holes on the fishtail end are interesting .... A residual design detail held-over from the MMM appropriation? With its function nullified by not having whatever would be towed.
So Billy Blastoff appears to be entirely reliant upon his view screen for navigation where Major Matt Mason can see what's in front of him.
Will dig up some pix of the rigs they are based on for comparison of how the forms were simplified.
In practice, with Spacex type Golden Astronauts, a cloned LP rocket + rocket gantry, both from cake decoration topping sets.
Some sort of heated discussion on safely fueling the smaller rocket, I believe.
Going for that artsy blur ...
Good Cop: Gold crawler.
Bad Cop: Black crawler.
"What do you mean, "distinguishing charac-darrrristics"?
... Tired of the back and forth, Bad Cop rolls forward to chew out the Fuel Maintenance Technician directly.
Appealing to the Good Cop's sense of reason over why they are obliged to use an unsafe procedure to prepare for a liftoff.
Not listening, cos he's watching "Space Angel".
"Look, look, I'm done arguing. Why don't you roll that junk-heap outta here and let us get back to work, OK pal??"
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