5) Tough Tom (chrome version), Smash Up Derby by Kenner
"I wouldn’t ever have considered myself a car person, yet three vehicles, two of which are cars, make my top 5 toys. Now note that this is the chrome version. Like Gollum would, I just love how shiny this is, even nearly forty years since it was made. This and my Hot Wheels Criss Cross Crash were a pure celebration of crashing and smashing cars. When you are a kid it is almost instinctive when given two cars to bash them together. Then you actually drive one and do everything you can to avoid it actually happening. From the kinetic and amazingly action packed box photography, to the lurid paintwork, this was a marvel of toy engineering. It was from the genius of Marvin Glass and associates, and used the gyroscopic SSP system to rocket around. If by complete chance you could get two to rocket at each other over their ramps and hit each other, they would fly apart only to be put back together ready for another head on duel. Meccano held the licence in Europe for these, and I do have the French version which is a Peugeot, but unlike Tough Tom it doesn’t have any lovely dents in the sculpt so it lost out being picked."
4) The Frog by Tamiya
"I picked up this reissue a few years ago, and had a total blast building it with my father. I was always taken with the styling of the original and Tamiya have been switched on to know there is an audience out there who are keen for the cars that defined an era of RC modelling. The box it comes in is also a work of art (I did frame the lid). Shunsaku Tamiya’s biography is well worth hunting down, and it offers both a fascinating insight into how a small business grew to something so big, but also the way in which they set about doing things."
3) AT AT by Kenner
"I just had to include a Star Wars toy in my top 5. Other than Lego, I must have played with my Star Wars stuff more than any other toys growing up. The AT-AT was always too expensive for my parents (what a cliche! - the man child buys what he missed as a kid) and while the Star Wars toys never managed to push the envelope as far as the GI Joe Carrier, some of the vehicles were pretty bloody big for kids toys, something toy makers seem to have shied away from nowadays. I can’t say why I like the AT-AT above all the other vehicles and ships in the cannon other than it is AWESOME."
2) Gimmi by Disney
"This fellow always puts a smile on my face. I found him on holiday whilst in Paris at a flea market and soon sealed the deal on him. It means a lot more to me if I find a collectable on a day out or on holiday than by clicking the mouse. Its a souvenir of both a wonderful holiday and also just a fab figure. One of the three little pigs, it is an official Disney figure, undated but with an elephant logo on the back. It must be Italian as the pigs were called Timmi, Gimmi and Tommi there, and he had Gimmi written on his cap."
1) Martin by James Jarvis for Silas (BxH)
"I remember seeing this figure in The Face when it first came out, but living in Australia I had no chance of getting it at the time. The Face was my Internet in the 90s. I would even fork over the extra at Minotaur comics for the latest import copy. James Jarvis has a wonderful way of capturing nuances of subcultures in his work that seem to both revel and poke fun at them at the same time. I also chose this figure for my top five because it was made by Bounty Hunter. My obsession for collecting all the James Jarvis vinyls is only equalled by my BxH addiction (sorry Kid Hunter, you’re in my top 10)."
