When I was a kid, Thunderbirds.
Some of you, being from a similar era to my own, will recognize that not only as a complete sentence, but a complete thought and, indeed, a complete paragraph.
Gerry Anderson's puppet/sci-fi epic changed the way we saw the world. When my brother and I (5 and 7 years old at the time) spoke of "number one" or "number two" there was never even an inkling of any particular bodily function. Those phrases could ONLY ever mean the sleek, swing wing rocket plane or the portly green cargo carrier with swept-forward wings. My Schwinn bicycle magically transformed into Thunderbird 1 as soon as it cleared the garage, and we quickly learned that sliding down the upturned picnic table into the pedal car, like Virgil sliding into Thunderbird 2, was a really quick route to a busted behind.
Then of course there were the toys...
Dinky toys were a rarity where we were, but there was no shortage of companies producing toy vehicles in the Thunderbird idiom. One line was known in the U.S. as "Golden Astronaut" toys (Space X in the rest of the world, I think). These were awesome little plastic vehicles that were sold on a rack in the drugstore and were quite reasonable (cheap), so mum was a bit more inclined to spring for one (As long as we had been behaving ourselves, of course). My brother and I had dozens of Golden Astronaut toys and would spend hours making jet noises as our miniature fleet shot through space on another adventure.
This is a catalog shot of some of the G.A. line up. Do any of you guys remember these things? They were good fun...
Of course, out of all of them, we had our particular favorites and one of mine is the inspiration for this build. Here is a shot of some of the parts before assembly. Any guesses as to which one it is going to be???
More soon!
Mike
Some of you, being from a similar era to my own, will recognize that not only as a complete sentence, but a complete thought and, indeed, a complete paragraph.
Gerry Anderson's puppet/sci-fi epic changed the way we saw the world. When my brother and I (5 and 7 years old at the time) spoke of "number one" or "number two" there was never even an inkling of any particular bodily function. Those phrases could ONLY ever mean the sleek, swing wing rocket plane or the portly green cargo carrier with swept-forward wings. My Schwinn bicycle magically transformed into Thunderbird 1 as soon as it cleared the garage, and we quickly learned that sliding down the upturned picnic table into the pedal car, like Virgil sliding into Thunderbird 2, was a really quick route to a busted behind.
Then of course there were the toys...
Dinky toys were a rarity where we were, but there was no shortage of companies producing toy vehicles in the Thunderbird idiom. One line was known in the U.S. as "Golden Astronaut" toys (Space X in the rest of the world, I think). These were awesome little plastic vehicles that were sold on a rack in the drugstore and were quite reasonable (cheap), so mum was a bit more inclined to spring for one (As long as we had been behaving ourselves, of course). My brother and I had dozens of Golden Astronaut toys and would spend hours making jet noises as our miniature fleet shot through space on another adventure.
This is a catalog shot of some of the G.A. line up. Do any of you guys remember these things? They were good fun...
Of course, out of all of them, we had our particular favorites and one of mine is the inspiration for this build. Here is a shot of some of the parts before assembly. Any guesses as to which one it is going to be???
More soon!
Mike