Action Man vehicles

[McColm]

 When I was a kid the Action Man figure was all the rage (1970-1980). You could collect the stars that were on the packaging or inside and get accessories or different clothes .
During my school holidays all the kids in my neighbourhood would have miniature battles, tanks,  armoured cars,  helicopters and my motorcycle with sidecar.
This fad has come back and I'm seeing some of the vehicles for sale in charity shops or on Ebay. I'm sure that someone mechanical could put an electric engine or remote control.
They would make great donor vehicles for whiffery or replicas.

[Weaver]

Not so miniature: they were HUGE!

IIRC, I had:

A Ferret scout car

A Spartan APC (chosen because it was a good "toy box" to pack them all away into)

An off-brand Jeep and trailer that was slightly too small

The 'Capture Copter' version of the single-seat helo: all black, with a mostly opaque windscreen and big claws at the front.

[Mossie]

The 'Capture Copter' version of the single-seat helo: all black, with a mostly opaque windscreen and big claws at the front.

I had the standard helicopter, green with a strut tail boom.

Police motorcycle, my favourite.

Some kind of tank, can't remember which, that was bought from a jumble sale.  Always thought it missed the turret, but it could have been the Ferret too.

Frogman.

Several with Eagle Eyes, with the little switch at the back of the head to move the eyes left and right. This was a must have with my friends, along with flock hair. Older Action Men without flock hair were relegated to second line duty.

[Weaver]

The Ferret was a Mk.1 with no turret and a pintle-mounted .30 cal, so it might be what you're thinking of. Four wheels?

I only had one Action Man with Eagle Eyes. Him and two(?) others had the rubber gripping hands (with the trigger fingers snapped off, of course) and the flock hair, and I had about four older second-hand ones with rigid hands and painted hair who were, just as you say, the B team. I never had one with the pull-string voice box.

Think I might have had a motorbike and sidecar too, come to think of it...

Another thing I had was a couple of Action Man novels. These were odd, because they were dead straight-faced war/action/adventure stories in which one guy just happened to be called 'Action Man'. The one I can remember had him at Arnhem, and it was dark: didn't downplay the casualties and the sense of failure at all, as I remember.

[PR19_Kit]

Wasn't the Action Man tank a Scorpion or a Scimitar?

I recall vainly trying to fit RC into one a long time ago, but it was just too darn small for the equipment and batteries at the time.

[Weaver]

Just been looking through the Action Man HQ site and remembered that I had the Atomic Man (6-Million Dollar Man/Bionic Man rip-off) as well.

Wasn't the Action Man tank a Scorpion or a Scimitar?

I recall vainly trying to fit RC into one a long time ago, but it was just too darn small for the equipment and batteries at the time.

The tracked tank was a Scorpion, but the turret doesn't ususally break right off, which is why Mossie mentioned the Ferret. Most people think of Ferrets with turret's bu the Action Man one was open-topped.

I would have thought the Scorion was big enough, unless you were trying to preserve space for the figures as well...

[PR19_Kit]

I would have thought the Scorion was big enough, unless you were trying to preserve space for the figures as well...

Back then radios and batteries were a LOT larger than they are now.

[tigercat]

I had loads back in the day mostly from car boots

I think I had a land rover although it might have been slightly off brand

[Nick]

When I saw this....

https://imodeler.com/2014/08/westland-lysander-on-floats-now-this-is-how-i-would-have-done-it/


I thought the floats had come from this Pursuit Craft:
http://www.actionmanhq.co.uk/action-man-vehicles/pursuit-craft/index.php

This site has everything Action Man related and it shows the range was huge, far bigger than I realised. The Spartan APC and German Armored cars are ones I never heard of. Oddly my Jeeps are a different design.

I had 4 soldiers, a pair of Jeeps with trailers, a Scorpion Tank and the Pursuit Craft. My stuff was a lot of second hand from friends of family but I remember getting the Talking Commander for Christmas one year and the SAS trooper the next. It might have been from the 1984 era when it was getting sold off cheap.

[lenny100]

i also had a Mk1 ferret and remember actually ride on the top of it myself down the ally which had a slight downhill slop, also had the tank and both heli , also a aircraft resembling a gnat but never seen once since

[Mossie]

The Ferret was a Mk.1 with no turret and a pintle-mounted .30 cal, so it might be what you're thinking of. Four wheels?

I think that's it, memory is a bit hazy.  It could have been the German scout with broken bits. Just as easily, as a youngster I probably thought the turret was missing because there was a hole where I thought one should be.

Just been looking through the Action Man HQ site and remembered that I had the Atomic Man (6-Million Dollar Man/Bionic Man rip-off) as well.

When I was thinking of Eagle Eyes, I was sure I remembered one with a gammy eye, now I realise that was Steve Austin.   I didn't have it, a friend did, but I inherited the engine block in a bag of bits he didn't want which I used in my games, I also got the TNT from Buckaroo.

Staying slightly off the Action Man theme, (only cos I associated them all together at the age of 7), one I did have was the wind-up Evel Kineval. 

[Mossie]

Another thing I remember is you could buy new uniforms and outfits for him.  I occasionally got these but my mum would knit and sew them for me from patterns in Women's Weekly. She'd offer them as prizes at the village tombolas, went down well!

[NARSES2]

Can I just say that by the time Action Man came out in the UK (1966) I was already well past the stage of having one. Indeed was just starting to think of "Action Ladies"  . This site is starting to make me feel older every day 

[jcf]

Being in North America we had G.I. Joe, the original action doll, my brother still has his
space capsule. I never got any of the accessory vehicles etc, because I wasn't that much
into the whole thing. We had the regular and the flocked versions, including one bearded
with Kung Fu grip. I let him have my hard hair one and I executed Mr. Beardy with a .45
caliber cap and ball blackpowder pistol.


Tom still has some of his other childhood toys, I don't have any aside from a Hot Wheels
wheel-standing rail dragster. Of course the decals are long gone on mine. The weight in
rear is hinged and when latched in the up position the front end is raised. The drag strip
track had a ridge that would hit the latch dropping the front during the run.

[lenny100]

if i remember right the one with the beard in the uk was in a navy uniform with a white submarine jumper.