So far, this vehicle is the only good thing that’s ever happened getting up at 4am on a Monday.
If you have read any of my recent articles over the last couple years, you will no doubt have noticed a major change in my collecting habits since I started writing for the Fwoosh. After Mezco began their One:12 Collective line, I quit all the other lines I collected. Dead serious. I dropped all of them. I have since re-added things that can potentially work with that collection, like some NECA offerings, and focused nearly exclusively on 1/12 scaled vehicles.
But as you have likely also noticed, the American domestic toy scene just plain sucks if you’re looking for vehicles. So I took my search global. Madelman. HM Armed Forces. Geyper Man. Action Man. Palitoy. Cherilea. I found out that many toy lines of the past and outside of the country have done much more amazing things in their vehicles than the dominant makers in the US today. And the grand-daddy of most of those vehicles can be traced back to G.I. Joe and his overseas counterpart, the original Action Man. And Action Man’s pride and joy of the vehicle fleet would be this fighter jet.
If I were to somewhat do this history a disservice in the interest of time, Cherilea was a company that essentially filled a gap left by the Action Man manufacturer (Palitoy in the UK), essentially the same way Irwin did for G.I. Joe in the US. These were rugged, inexpensive vehicles with a few features, but they were mostly designed to be good “throw-around” toys that filled out the sparse ranks of directly marketed vehicles. This sort of thing was very common in the 1970s and 1980s, but they sadly fell out of favor as toy companies started to consolidate around a handful for specific licensed properties.
Cherilea made some damn cool vehicles, though. I own a Scorpion tank as well, and while it might be a big chunk of hollow plastic, the turret turns, the treads work, and throw some extras and some paint on it and it looks pretty boss. I’ve long been hunting for this jet to go with it, but, man, has that been a pain in the ass.
But I had to get up early for work on Monday. I checked eBay and holy cow, there she was, for a steal.
After a super-quick few days of shipping, I had this green chunk of history all to myself. Surprisingly light, I was pleased to see it was no less sturdy than the other Cherilea vehicles I’ve seen. But what was fantastic is that the canopy was still in one piece, and the landing gear still worked. In fact, the only thing missing were a couple of missiles that sit under the wings on those machine gun-looking launchers. The canopy clicks into the body fairly securely, and the landing gear work pretty well with just a couple pegs to hold them in their positions. It is molded in a suitable olive plastic color, and has great Royal Air Force livery stickers still holding very well.
And, damn, is it big. It actually outspans my Harrier. And like most vehicles, it might look a little cartoony with a 12-inch figure, but it looks very right with a 6-inch one. As to what plane it is based on, consensus hold that it is closely modeled on the Folland Gnat, a mid-century light fighter and trainer aircraft built in the UK.
It’s a often overlooked little fighter, due to it’s non-combat roles in the RAF, but it was used by the Red Arrows acrobatic team. The Indian Air Force used them in combat against Pakistan, though, where the nimble craft proved a tough opponent for the Pakistani Sabres. And it got to be the starring plane in Hot Shots! where it was known as the Oscar EW-5894 Fallus Tactical Fighter Bomber.
I had initially intended to customize one of these a bit, add some paint, ordnance and so on, but in hand, I’m not so sure. This instantly brought back memories of those big hollow plastic planes I had as a kid, like the C-130 that you could load up with green army men, or this badass little F-15 that you could juuust barely squeeze a G.I. Joe into. And it makes me sincerely wish that it was possible to pop down to a Woolworth’s or a ZCMI and grab a huge vehicle like this for $10. Instead, the last signs of these vehicles I’m aware of were a handful that made it into the JC Penney catalogs in the early 2000s, with my last holy grail, the Fairland Toys YF-22.
Kinda offbeat for a review, I suppose, since I rambled more about the history than the actual vehicle itself, but without a doubt, if you find one of these in your travels, it’s absolutely work snagging. It’s a stand-up toy from a simpler era, but it still can outpace a lot of what’s available for action figure vehicles today. Special thanks to SlenderDave for taking such good care of this thing all those years, and helping it get to a new home!
