Model Forum / General / Models / October 2005

Closest that I saw was that set from Mattel Hot Wheels a couple of
years back. It had a 1:25 (very broad +/-) rover like that little one
in the intro of Star Trek Enterprise. There was another in the set,
maybe 1:72 (again VB+/-) inside the open lander.
Check eBay, I've seen them there from time to time.
There was another set, Furuta (Japanese gumball models) that had a
pretty nice Viking lander (I know, not a rover) and a bunch of space
probes.
Again - eBay.
HTH

-- John (aka the Old Timer)

At the LA Toy Show, Sun Star had one in 1/18:
http://www.scale18.com/cgi-bin/album?name=la2005&pic=91
http://www.scale18.com/cgi-bin/album?name=la2005&pic=90

You probably won't see any OFFICIALLY licensed mars rovers from any
major model kit manufacturers due to licensing agreements.  The most
recent agreement that I'm aware of states that NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, JPL, and it's "parent" the California Institute of
Technology in Pasedena, CA has exclusively licensed all Mars rover
(i.e. Spirit & Opportunity) toy and model rights to LEGO.  LEGO has
marketed at least two versions of the current Mars rovers, a small one
included with a Mars Orbiter and Delta II launch vehicle and a larger
scale one.

Mattel was one of the first toy/model intellectual property licencees
for JPL.  Mattel produced a Hot Wheels set for the Mars Pathfinder
Sojourner Rover back in 1997 which included the cruise stage capsule,
Carl Sagan Memorial Station, and the Sojourner rover.  This Hot Wheels
set was a great success for Mattel and JPL.  JPL then licensed a Hot
Wheels set for the Galileo mission to Jupiter which included a Europa
probe, Goldstone tracking station antenna, and the Galileo spacecraft
itself.  The Mattel/JPL partnership finally ran out of steam when
Mattel was licensed to produce a Hot Wheels set titled "JPL Returns to
Mars".  This set included the Mars Polar Lander, its Deep Space 2
microprobe, and the Mars Climate Orbiter.  You may recall that the Mars
Climate Orbiter was lost due to a metric/English units conversion
anomaly and the Mars Polar Lander crashed while landing due to
premature descent engine shutdown.  Thus, what Mattel in reality
produced was the "Mars Failure" pack.  This Hot Wheels set was in
limited distribution prior to the MPL crash in the JPL gift shop.
After this last failure, distribution was halted and the "JPL Returns
to Mars" Hot Wheels set sat in the warehouse.  About a year later it
apparently found its way into clearance stores such as Tuesday Morning.
Needless to say, this Hot Wheels set is rare and highly prized by
collectors.  Mattel also produced Hot Wheels sets for "John Glenn's
return to space" and for Project Apollo.  After all these Mattel sets
were released, LEGO became the owner of the rights to market
JPL-related spacecraft toys & models.

More info:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/97/mattel3.html
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/98/galtoy.html
http://collectspace.com/news/news-121099a.html
http://www.lego.com/eng/info/default.asp?page=pressdetail&contentid=3478

Martin

If you are willing to consider a paper (card stock) model you can find
one for free at http://www.lansbergen.net/modelbouw.htm along with a
ton of other space-related card models by designer Erik te Groen.

For scratchbuilders there used to be a detailed CAD drawing of the
rovers online but the file was apparently taken down due to copyright
issues.

Regards,
  Ralph