Mars Patrol Tin Rockets

Before all this plastic, before all these highly articulated, feature-filled toys that we find on our shelves today, before rockets had flashing lights, opening doors, connecting sections and realistic sound, there were tin toys. Toys printed on flat tin and shaped into forms of robots and rockets, fitted with friction-drive motors.

The 1950s and 1960s saw the heyday of these wonderful, simple toys. In an era that saw the rise of science-fiction films and a fervent race for the conquest of space, UFO and rocket images were everywhere. TV shows like Thunderbirds and Star Trek were still years away, but boys were already playing with anything they could get their hands on that represented rockets and the optimism of the coming space age, with the paranoia of Mars invasion playing out on the big screen while fear of the Red invasion played out on the small screen.

Rocket USA is a maker of tin toys cut from the patterns of the past. They closely reproduce designs from the height of the tin toy era, rockets, robots and space guns, using the same techniques and technology of a bygone time.

Now Rocket USA gives us four rocket cars based on those designs, each lithographed with different printed designs, each built from tab-slot construction and each sporting a vintage-style friction-drive motor.

The Mars Patrol name and box graphics hearken back to the days of the Martian scare. Each rocket is designed and built based on a 1950s model, and the boxes are illustrated with art that could easily have been printed 40 or 50 years ago, with the only tell-tale signs of modernity being a UPC code and a web address.

The rockets are cut and bent from flat tin sheets, each consisting of two main halves for the body, three two-piece fins at the rear, two to the side and one at the top. The upper body half connects with the lower half by bending tin around a ridge on the bottom half for a tight seal. The fins' halves are likewise joined. Tabs on the fins fit into slots on the body. These tabs are bent inward for a solid join.

Spaceships that show their metal

First, let's get the design variation out of the way. The four rockets in this series are quite identical, apart from their lithographed designs. The two series are the Mars Patrol M.P.1 Rockets and the Raider X Rockets. Even the names call back to those simpler times when X was in the name of so many films and more than a little overused in the sci-fi culture.

The blue-toned Raider X-2 rockets sport retro-styled red, green and blue paint with lightning streaks, missiles and lights and stars. A cockpit on one shows a printed robot seated at the controls.

The green-toned Mars Patrol-2 rockets are green, yellow and red and have star designs, rivets and weapons printed around the surfaces, as well as small astronauts depicted in a cockpit.

All of these designs fit well with the vintage models of rockets they are lovingly based on.

Underneath each rocket are three wheels, each made of bent tin. The rear two are part of an old-fashioned friction-drive motor assembly. When you push the rocket, a flywheel continues to drive the rocket until the momentum is used up. These motors have the authentic feel of the originals that I remember so well.

One noticeable difference between Rocket USA's ships and ones really designed and built in 1950 is that those older rockets were less worried about sharp metal tabs. Most of the tabs on Rocket USA's models are bent inward and are not actually visible; they won't hook your skin like the originals.

The one thing I would change in the design of these toys is to make them displayable standing on end, on their fins. If you stand these up, they tend to fall wheel-ward, as the fins aren't fixed around the toys' center of gravity. Not a huge problem, but these rockets cry out to be displayed as rockets, aimed upward.

These toys are great for enthusiasts who feel warm and cozy when they think of a long-lost era of toy production, or for fans of science fiction of any kind, or for people who like to display a touch of taste in today's world of hyper-realistic and over-featured toys.