Lunar Roving Vehicle (Dinky Toys 355)
| in storage |
|---|
Lunar Roving Vehicle (Dinky Toys 355) |
 |
| location: |
|
in storage 1972 - 1976 |
A metallic blue ~1:32-scale model of the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), made as part of the Dinky Toys range, model number 355 (1972-1976).
The model has independent four-wheel steering controlled by the central steering stick, and comes with four white plastic astronauts.
Condition
The red badge painted on each astronaut's left shoulder has caused a pinkish discolouration of their upper arm. This is very common in these models.
Date
Although Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon in 1969 (Apollo 11), this model didn't appear until 1972. This is because the initial manned Apollo missions didn't carry an LRV, which only appeared in 1971 and 1972, for Apollo 15, Apollo 16 and Apollo 17.
Color
The actual Lunar Rover was silver with orange wheelguards.
However, whoever was in change of the Dinky Toys range at the time seemed to think that white or silver spaceships were boring, and that they would be better off depicted in snazzy metallic blue or green. As well as the Lunar Rover, other victims of this sort of "improvement" were the Shadow Interceptor (Dinky Toys 351, which was supposed to be white, but somehow ended up metallic green) and the "Eagle" spaceships from Space 1999 (which were also supposed to be white, but ended up with coloured cabins).
We're guessing that this craze for "improving" spaceships by giving them "hot-rod" colours may have been encouraged by the success of the Mattel "Hot Wheels" range in 1968.
External links
