Original thunderbird 2 movie#
Original thunderbird 2 series#
Original thunderbird 2 tv#

What's your Thunderbirds worth in 2023? Here are some recently sold items. Webkinz Marbles Mighty Beanz Zippy Monkey Minic Motorways Thunderbirds Value and Price Guide

Original thunderbird 2 series#

As of 2007, Japanese companies such as Aoshima, Konami and Takara were still producing new Thunderbirds toys based on the original series vehicles, including Takara's very expensive Thunderbird 2 model with lights and working motorised legs which lift the fuselage, exposing the cargo pod.

Original thunderbird 2 movie#

Toy company Bandai produced toys to coincide with the release of the 2004 live action movie in the UK. Remarkably, the free 'fact sheet' that detailed this process also became so sought-after that it too became difficult to obtain. The Tracy Island set was particularly popular in the UK, being the best selling toy at Christmas and was in such high demand on the year of its release that the BBC children's television show Blue Peter instructed viewers in constructing their own version from household materials.

Original thunderbird 2 tv#

Many toys were made by Matchbox in the 1990s to coincide with a revival of the TV series, including a Tracy Island playset and also the new movie, though they were generally marketed outside the US and in Canada.

Original Thunderbirds toys are now expensive and highly sought after collectors' items.

They proved hugely popular and were one of the best selling merchandising lines of the decade. Several companies, including Matchbox and Dinky Toys were licensed to produce die-cast metal and plastic toys based on the Thunderbird vehicles. A popular show, the series is still shown today and has inspired a number of subsequent television programmes and films. The series focused on the head of the organisation, ex-astronaut Jeff Tracy, and his five sons who piloted the 'Thunderbird' machines. The series followed the adventures of International Rescue, an organisation created to help those in grave danger using technically advanced equipment and machinery. Today’s manufacturers therefore retain a niche for a transport aircraft which could continue operating from semi-prepared runways at far lighter airfield surface strengths.Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of puppetry dubbed 'Supermarionation'. Downloading a maintenance/performance report from Thunderbird 2’s flight computer would either require interpretation of its blinking red lights, or a system of punch cards guaranteed to cause an avionics technician no shortage of tedium. The Pavement Concession Strength required for a Thunderbird 2 resting on its four stilts during loading/unloading of cargo would be an airfield engineer’s nightmare come to life. While its VTOL capability is attractive for accessing small, remote airstrips, the heat produced by this system would restrict it to the sturdiest of concrete aprons and runways only. No doubt found the spacious cargo bay would be extremely useful for transporting large numbers of troops and cargo where required. Most Air Forces would likely opt out of using the expensive and complicated Tropical Island launch pad system – see the video of the launch sequence – in favour of their existing runways.

A conservative estimate would place Thunderbird 2 as having up to five times the cargo volume of current in-production military transports.įaults aside, Jeff Tracey could have managed a nice export program for Thunderbird 2 should he have to take it in to production. Mike Pigott examines the biggest and best diecast model of Thunderbird 2 ever made, produced by Aoshima of Japan in 1/200 scale.