Here’s the X-ploratrons backstory, and below is the ad from the 1979 Corgi catalog. The first ad is illustrated by British artist Frank Langford.
(Images via combomphotos/Flickr and Moonbase Central)
Archive for the 'Corgi Toys' Category
Corgi’s The X-ploratrons (1979)
Published January 20, 2016 2000 AD , Adventure 2000 , Corgi Toys , X-ploratrons 5 Comments
The X-ploratrons were Corgi’s short-lived (and ill-named) answer to Matchbox’s Adventure 2000 line. They seem to have been produced for one year only, and there were four vehicles in total, each featuring specialized equipment: Lasertron (reflector), Magnetron (magnet), Rocketron (firing rocket, working compass), and Scanotron (magnifying lens).
The X-ploratrons, according to the backstory, were created to combat a nature that’s gone wild in a 21st century post-apocalyptic world. While the the actual product doesn’t match the quality and imagination of the Adventure 2000 line, the art is superior: all of the package illustrations were done by Carlos Ezquerra, a longtime 2000 AD alum and the co-creator of Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog. Interestingly, Adventure 2000’s Raider Command vehicle appears in a 1978 Judge Dredd story arc called The Cursed Earth.
More views below, and more on the X-ploratrons later.
(Images via The Saleroom, Vectis Auctions, and The Toy Cabin)
Spiderbike, Spiderbuggy, and Spidercopter (Corgi, 1979)
Published August 6, 2014 Comic Books , Corgi Toys , Make Mine Marvel 2 Comments
For those of you amused by the inaccuracy (and irrelevance) of Corgi’s Star Trek II Klingon Warship, I present these gems. The Spidercopter has an “amazing flicking spider tongue,” which Mary Jane may or may not have appreciated. A Spidervan came in the same series.
Star Trek II Klingon Warship (Corgi, 1982)
Published August 5, 2014 Corgi Toys , Star Trek 13 Comments
Dude, Where’s My James Bond Submarine Car?
Published July 11, 2013 Corgi Toys , James Bond 4 Comments
The kick-ass, amphibious Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me could be yours! From RM Auctions:
No Bond car has ever done anything as outrageous as transform itself into a submarine. Used to incredible effect in the film The Spy Who Loved Me, starring Roger Moore, the white Lotus commonly tops the polls when generations of movie fans are asked to vote on their favourite film cars of all time […]
The vehicle to be offered by RM Auctions at its forthcoming London sale, 8-9 September, in Battersea Park, is the one and only fully functioning car especially designed and built for the famous underwater sequence seen on screen in the 1977 film […]
The Aston Martin from Goldfinger sold for £2.9 million in 2010. I can’t imagine the Lotus will go for less, since, you know, it’s a bloody submarine. The closest I ever got to the damn thing is pictured below.
(Images via Lotus Esprit Turbo and Vectis Auctions)
2 Warps to Neptune 