Gerry Anderson is a cult TV figure because he took the unfashionably low tech world of puppetry and applied it with such skill and design flair to science fiction subjects that the results were highly original and imaginative. From the late sixties to late seventies, Dinky Toys produced die cast model toys of some of the more memorable Anderson craft from Joe 90, Captain Scarlet, Thunderbirds, UFO and Space 1999. They are now highly collectible. Vote for your faves.

Sams car is an earlier take on the classic cars for UFO, of which the Straker car was made as a toy. Unfortunately neither toys had castings good enough to capture the sharp lines that made the original items in the series, interesting.

Joe 90 was an early production and still had a design style that was reflected something between 50s scifi and the NASA Mercury program. Joe 90’s car is a forerunner of Thunderbird 2, with its stunted reverse wings.

“The grey-blue vehicle has ten sets of wheels (six sets over the front, middle and rear axles which are double) and an auxiliary traction system of hydraulically lowered caterpillar tracks at the rear. The driver and passengers are seated facing backwards to reduce impact in the event of a collision, with a large video monitor displaying the road ahead and behind. A co-driver mans the weaponry systems, which include a front-mounted cannon.”

Like a sneaker on skiis, with a giant dildo proboscis, this is a perfect Freudian nightmare of a toy. At the same time, it is so highly original in design terms that this is possibly the definitive classic vehicle from the Anderson series.

Gullwing doors were the height of design sophistication, in the early 70s, so the Maximum Security Vehicle, from Captain Scarlet, had to have them. This was a rarer toy than the other two from the same series, namely the Spectrum Patrol Car and Pursuit Vehicle.

Lady Penelope’s car, driven by her bocked nose cockney chauffeur, Parker, looked like drug dealers pimped out Rolls Royce. It had a Beatles era license plate, FAB 1, and was bright Pink. These were the days before excessive market research, when, of all the Thunderbird items that Meccano could choose to manufacture for boys, they chose a pink car.

Its ironic that some of the most famous designs from the Anderson series were trucks or space trucks, not the rockets or fighters. But the lumbering, whale-like, Thunderbird 2 – that took half an episode to launch as they beamed messages back and forth into space, lowered palm trees, cleared a runway and raised a fire-break – sure made a great toy. Even after the legs broke off and baby Thunderbird 4 got stuck somewhere inside the sofa.

The Eagle Transporter with its distinctive code shaped cockpit, and open truss backbone, was a classic toy from the UK series Space 1999. The Dinky Toy models often had had green cockpit and legs, rather than the usual white.