Bubble Dome Tailfin Plastic Space Cars from West Germany & Hong Kong, Middle/Late 1950s?

One of the pride & joys of my New Old Stock stash. "Space Vehicles" works as a name I guess, and the graphics do match. Carded set assembled by "LMR" - whomever they were - from simplistic plastic toy cars fabricated in Hong Kong at an as-yet undetermined point in time. Fell in love with the line instantly and maintained a display of admirable restraint in not opening the set, kept "sealed" only by staples. The act rewarded this fall by a score of four loose vehicles which appear to be from the series.

If anyone has any information about this toy range or the others shown below I am all ears, you can comment or message without being logged in.

I've been enjoyably puzzled by the things since first sight. Bodies are soft or stiff plastic with a hard plastic dome, simplistic wheels and what looks to be a plastic body cast from a die. The vehicle designs reek of 1950s futurism and would look right at home as miniatures in an Antonio Margheriti "Gamma One" movie.

Size & stylistic comparison to Hot Wheels' 2020 "Mattel Dream Mobile" which also has prominent bubble top and tailfin features. Vehicle first marketed in 1953 in a 1/24 scale friction drive toy designed by Elliot Handler and Joseph Kossof. Hot Wheels 1/64 scale version by Ryu Asada and Neal "Neelco" Smith, also ships in teal blue and key lime green. The stylistic similarity suggests contemporaneous design era, use of soft plastic suggests 1954 or 1955 as the earliest Hong Kong cars would have been in production.

Not My Collection - Further nosing around that well known auction site leads to some answers in the form of this batch which appear similar but are quite different. This group all manufactured in West Germany with interesting fictional vehicle specs stamped on their undersides. The fit & finish of the cars is also noticeably better then the Hong Kong vehicles, which one must conclude are copies of the German rigs. I do not have any examples of them in my stash just yet so I do not know if we are looking  at hard or soft plastic hulls & wheels.

Cheers to the original uploader of these pix which are not of vehicles in my collection.

From the texture of the underside of this specimen I'd say that's a soft plastic body, the wheels as well.

The designer must have been having a ball when concocting those vehicle specs.

My favorite of the designs. That thing is all boss.

Another set with the same attributes. Yeah I want that Space Truck, on my desk, lookin' at me. Also quite noticeable is how uniform and well-crafted the bubble domes are in comparison to the Hong Kong cars.

So, an attribute to look for are white wheels. If the wheels are black it is likely a Hong Kong copy. Check the markings to be sure, and give me a shout if there are any extras to go around.

Still very sweet, and from my eye cast from the same mold (die?) but with less care. The fictional vehicle specs from the underside of the German cars are all scratched out with Made In Hong Kong stamped over the mess. Would they be "copies" or "recasts"? To me a copy means a new sculpt including using an original toy as a mold positive. So my opinion is that these were recasts made from the German molds with the stamping information removed. Then fabricated in Hong Kong by a toy company less focused on quality then pressing units.

"Wild Wild Planet" car.

Note poor forming on that right headlamp.

I think this one's my favorite of the looses. Rolls the best of the bunch too.

This one may end up in a space artwork with its body repainted. Don't care much for the pink. Bubble dome is also unevenly formed.

Bootleg 52mm Star Trek Figures & Space Hopper Vehicle from MPC's 1976 "Beyond Tomorrow Lunar Space Station"

 

Decent barn finds if our vendor made it difficult to acquire & impossible to seek more. I have standards and this transaction did not rise to them though the results are undeniably cool. Some video below.

Click here to open in a new window for fullscreen viewing option.

My intel on the set has 1976 as the year of production. I'd have been all over this thing if not completely distracted by GI Joe, Hot Wheels, Mattel's "Flying Aces", Ricochet Racers and other such priorities. I did have the standard 52mm MPC spaceman figures but none of their space vehicles or futuristic playset forms.

Marvelously out of place amongst the bling were three hard plastic 52mm figures with painted details patterned after the Mego 8" Star Trek action figures, including the blue belt equipment. Fantastic! though I would have been outspokenly dismissive of these at the time: Unimpressively formed, sloppily painted and of dubious ilk -- Who is the yellow shirt supposed to be? Captain Kirk never wore a tricorder on away missions. And what's up with the chick? who is neither Uhurah ethnic or Yeoman Rand blonde. Just sort of generic, and now as an adult with a thing for female plastic playset space figures I absolutely had to have one of her. The yellowshirt is just gravy, whoever he's supposed to be.

Both get a Hong Kong mark on their backs with no maker logo, indicating that they were not franchise-authorized. MPC just whipped em up, and if I am correct they may have been  the only "new" addition to the myriad of space bling comprising Beyond Tomorrow.

Interesting how the accessory was painted before the tunic.

My newly obtained vintage 1974 Mego Mr. Spock. Had a robust collection of them which was lost when vacating NYC in 2000. Obtaining replacements is on the agenda if not an immediate priority, though I certainly need to get new equipment for his belt.

The goods, vintage Mego issue. Ain't complete until he has a blue tricorder too, and finding one without a broken shoulder strap can't break the bank. May need to go reproduction route for now and they look decent enough.

An enviable condition Dr. McCoy from the Mego Museum demonstrating the blue equipment germane to the 1974 production date.

So, that's what MPC was up to with this, and their lack of any official markings or franchise livery on the packaging says MPC just kind of went & did it. Would be very interested to learn if Gene Roddenberry's Lincoln Enterprises took any action.

Unless I be mistaken, Ms. Redskirt and Venus from MPC's 1963 Fireball XL5 playsets are the only human female space figures produced by MPC during their 30 or so years in business.

Venus gets an MPC logo as her appearance in the toy sets was licensed. Redskirt was not licensed so she just gets a Hong Kong.

The acquisition also included the above vehicle from "Beyond Tomorrow", what I would term a Space Hopper or Space Scooter, here shown with a 1:32 scale seated MPC pilot figure. 

Hard clunky plastic, like 3.5 inches bow to stern. Needs cleaning but I believe it to be complete.

That hole down the middle is puzzling unless there was a dedicated figure with peg which would it fastened in place. The seated pilot figures do not have pegs for seat holes.

So, he's not exactly sitting but it works well enough. I wish there was like a pull-lever for his hand to be working and love the view screen. 

Very cool. Now I need one of them stand-up jobs below.

Original Sears catalog listing, indicating that the Star Trek crew were referred to as "Painted Alien Figures." Which puts an interesting light on the playset components: If the human Star Trek crew are the "aliens", where is this futuristic civilization with Lunar Space Station? And it also looks like most of the vehicles included had been around since Fireball XL5 (1963); I want one of those Prime Mover and trailer vehicles, which appear to be knockoffs of Marx's "Operation Moon Base" equivalents from 1962. While I am not as familiar with MPC's space playset history, the "new" components of the set appear the domed control units, the decorated "base" at top, and those Star Trek figures.

Piasecki HUP Retriever and Other "Bag of Best Toy" Miniature Diecast Aircraft Made In Japan, Late 1950s?

I have a thing about archaic obsolete outdated helicopters. They are instantly futuristic looking. Anything made before the Bell UH-1 Huey pretty much, and the blue job in this formidable lot of Japanese made dime store metal aircraft caught my eye. I'm always looking for small vehicle forms for my little box paintings and at the price being offered gave these a whirl.

Since obtaining my stash I've seen more of them offered up but zero data on who may have made them or when. My initial conclusion was early/mid 1960s "Linemar Wannabes" fashioned after the Linemar Elegant Miniatures toy range of ultra tiny diecast vehicles. Now I'm not so sure, and in fact think it's equally likely that the miniature painted Japan diecast or metal toy idiom existed all along & the Linemar series just perfected the delivery. Those were made for toy shops, these were made for airport gift shops, pharmacy toy racks or newspaper kiosks and likely sold for half as much, serving as an inexpensive throw away toy you'd get your kid to help him keep quiet during a long flight.

Some video:

The W is also found in a diamond on the hull of the helicopter and I can only think it's a symbol for a Japanese manufacturer. 

Not my collection, interesting for how the colors on the card inking are reversed from the ones in my stash and the W logo is gone. Clever marketing idea for the packaging - It could contain anything.

Linemar "Space Missile" with its more specific packaging.

No idea what the aircraft might be and I kind of like the gull wing. Very Japanese looking.

DC-6?

F-88 Shooting Star?

F-105 Thunderchief?

Looks like a MIG. Could also be a Delta Dagger painted to look like a MIG, and the only other one of the group I'm super hot to open. First I want to learn more about them.

Had to open the helicopter, or heleocopter as we pronounce them here in Syracuse (itself pronounced Saracuse)

Zero stamping information. Wheels for aesthetic purposes only, does not roll and I won't be trying to. The metal is likely an antimony/tin alloy, and while not dangerous in this solid form children should not handle such toys. They shouldn't have handled them in 1960 either, though antimony smelting is apparently a traditional pop culture idiom in Japan.

The Piasecki HUP "Retriever", service helicopter introduced in 1949 and serving in various roles for the US Navy until 1964. That alone tells us the toy pieces were made earlier, at a time when the HUP would have been known to be in service. Elements of the design would later be picked up by Piasecki's H-21 Shawnee and the restructured company's Boeing-Vertol CH-47 Chinook.

Same distinctively bulging canopy.

Comparison with a CH-47 toy form and the different shaping to the rear rotor housing is apparent.

Extracting mortar team under fire.

I am in love <3  Bell HSL, 1953