New Blog

 Please find the new blog at https://explorer12.co.uk/

Redirect doesn't seem to function with Blogger.

This blog will no longer be updated but left in situ.

Space Adventure Manual

 After a decade I finally got round to scanning in the Space Manual! 😅😅😅

Available for download here.

BFI mention of Explorer 12 advert

 Kindly contributed by Tom Canning

http://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/Details/ChoiceFilmWorks/154713331

Does anyone have a copy of this? I can encode and upload to YouTube!

Adverts

 Bill over at Project Sword kindly sent me these that he discovered on the Daily Mail archives.

Article from "The Times"

BHS unveils toy range with the Conran touch

The Times (London)

August 25 1987, Tuesday

Copyright 1987 Times Newspapers Limited

Section: Issue 62856.

Length: 316 words

Byline: DEREK HARRIS, Industrial Editor

Body

BHS, the former British Home Stores which, as part of Storehouse, has been given the Sir Terence Conran flair treatment, is launching a new range of toys from the Storehouse chairman's design team. The range will go on sale in October.

BHS sees it - at a time when Storehouse's future as a possible bid target remains unclear - as strengthening the BHS label in the store chain's drive to change its image and consolidate its position further up market.

The range of Explorer 2 futuristic vehicles built on a non-violence theme is aimed at the Pounds 140 million market represented by children aged between five and ten.

Mr Mike Williams, BHS's merchandise controller, said: 'There appears to be an arms race among certain sections of the toy industry for who can produce the next more horrific concept. Our children may love it but it has gone beyond reasonable levels.' The new range, he believed, would be highly stimulating while diverting children away from violence and destruction

Explorer 2 will be backed by Pounds 250,000 promotional spending.

Mr Denis Cassidy, Storehouse deputy chairman and BHS chairman and chief executive, said; 'The move on toys means that we are at BHS now in all the major areas building on our own strong brand.

'We have done a remarkable job in moving from a trading policy based largely on price three or four years ago into one which injects more style, more reliability and more obvious quality, yet retaining the value for money.'

Refurbishing of BHS stores has involved an investment of about Pounds 200 million. The chain, which has 129 high street outlets, increased pretax profits by 20 per cent from last time, Mr Cassidy pointed out.

The BHS store opening programme is continuing with a new outlet due at Harrow, Middlesex, in October and a rebuilt one at Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, due to open in November.

An Italian Explorer

I received some pics of from Massimiliano Brusa in Italy of his Explorer. A small pic of this type can be seen on the box of my Woolworths Explorer.

Terrain Explorer (The Holy Grail)

Got this from china still boxed and very good condition for the grand sum of £20. This is my first complete Terrain Explorer :-)   Now to find the trailers!

Another Argie Explorer!

Acquired this one last year for about £50 from Argentina complete with red snow plough. Its the same body shell of the American Explorer but this time boxed and in a much more pleasant colour scheme.

The Argentinian Explorer

Picked up from Ebay Argentina last year and found by Bill comes another incarnation of the Explorer range. This yellow vehicle share a similar cab design to the American model however the leading chassis is different with a raised leading wheel set while the trailing vehicle has a mounted turret, the first piece of weaponry Ive seen on a Explorer Toy! The vehicle is stamped GALGO on the underside and not SuperToys Inc. This version is made of a much cheaper plastic.

The American Explorer?

Recently acquired off eBay and possibly part of the presumed American Explorer range. See http://explorer12s.blogspot.com/2009/09/woolworths-explorers.html for more thoughts.

Modified Trailer

Looking through my dupliate/spares yesterday I had an idea. I could complete my Space Explorer set if I took the Mechanical Excavator from a battered and broken Terrain EX1 and fit it on the back of the spare Radar Dish trailer to create the missing Mechanical Excavator! So I now have a full Space set plus a full Polar set. This now means I have a miss coloured Radar Dish mounting which can be remedied by a paint job to complete my Ocean set. I still have the problem of not enough trailer chassis but I do have a good few busted by primary vehicles chassis which can be disassembled and modified into trailers by use of the included tow bars. This is due to the modular construction of the vehicles, if you look at the parts the toys are constructed of you'll see their all the interchangeable just with different coloured plastic. More to come on this topic!

 

Polar Explorer Bag

Yet another Bill donation! I would loved to have on of these going to school. Not sure if there were any other versions made i.e. Space, Terrain, Ocean.

Space Explorer

Yet another donation from Bill, this is another almost complete set but is missing the Mechanical Excavator trailer. In one of the pics you can see a duplicate Radar Dish trailer, I got this along with three broken explorers in a very poor state and a Polar Command trailer off ebay last week for the grand total of £1 lol. It may be possible to turn this into a Ocean Explorer trailer with the addition of some well chosen green paint giving me a full Ocean set.

Ocean Explorer

This was another donation by Bill over at Project Sword. It was acquired from a set off ebay a few months back and came with an almost complete Space Explorer. This unit came with the mechanical grab on the aft trailer which is strange as they were all shipped with a radar dish. This can only mean that the original owner had a full set but has switched around the grab/radar dish mounting and possibly lost the other trailer chassis.

2010 Update & New Acquisitions

2010 has been a good year for Explorers as I have managed to acquire some new examples off ebay and two vehicles kindly donated to me by Bill over at Project Sword http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/ Anyway I now have a complete Polar Explorer set complete with all the trailers yahoo!

The Woolworths Explorers

These appeared in Woolworths circa 1994 also and were marketed as Explorer III. They also appeared/disappeared very quickly meaning that they never sold well either, It wasn't long before Woolies were selling these for as little as £2.00. These vehicles are a bit strange as it was very clear that these were re-releases of the original BHS range as all three of them had the original stickers and the EX4 Space explorer mission patch on the main body, very strange. Despite being labeled EX2,3,4 there was no re-released EX1. Moving on to the packaging it was very apparent that these were a intended as a cheap release due to the bad art work and quite frankly bad packaging, however it wasn't all bad. If you looked at the back of the box you came across a diagram of how to hook up two units using a tow bar, here you can see another two different types of explorer! Where these came from and what they were sold as no one knows.I suspect that this may have been the American version of the toy even perhaps the original toys that we never seen in the UK. It is possible that the BHS range was not the first and that they bought the toys and sold them as Explorer 12s in the UK. The reason behind this thinking is that the Woolies and BHS range were all embossed with 'Supertoys Inc 1986', I don't remember seeing them until 1988 so it 

could have been a failed toy range in the US that was sold to foreign interests. To date these boxes are the only ones clearly marked SUPERTOYS on the front and back so its clear that the Woollies range came straight form the original manufacturer. No trailers were ever released for this range from 

what I can tell.

Tandy's GO - Mars Mission (Remold)

These appeared in Tandy circa 1994 and were one of a kind, they were of the rounded cab design and came with a trailer included in the box which featured the mechanical grab.

 Interesting differences were that the rubber tires were removed and replaced with caterpillar tracks. This meant that the wheels were redesigned and given grooves for the track teeth to sit in. Another interesting difference with this model was that the trailer sat very close behind the primary unit AND linked into the all wheel drive system. This was very different as the trailer was not connected to the all wheel drive in the original models even though it did have the provision it was missing the drive transfer cog, the tow bar was different also which made the original trailers sit a good 1 cm behind the unit.

This version also came with a front wheel attachment enable the vehicle to climb over objects. This was never part of the original series and for what I know was unique to Tandy's version, this leads me to believe that the Explorers were marketed as something else abroad (More on this to come) as I don't see Tandy redesigning the mold just for one release, also this model is the only one not be have been made by Supertoys Inc (A US company) and is simply embossed 'Made In China'. These models were imported by a company called InterTAN.

The Base Station

The base station was less impressive compared to the vehicles but it was a nice accessory. I have an incomplete one in a damaged box somewhere in the attic. Recently I managed to acquire one fully complete and boxed base off eBay! The box itself is in excellent condition and even came with the original assembly leaflet. BHS in Glasgow used to have one of these in the center of a display area and would have numerous vehicles driving about the display all day. The thing was that Explorers couldn't turn and they would end up trying to drive up a wall which would burn out the motors. These were running all day and I'm sure BHS went through a ton of them!

The Second Batch RE1 & ME1

These two are something of a mystery as I don't know anything about them and never seen any other merchandise books etc. They are part of the official Explorer 12 fleet but I don't ever remember seeing them in BHS at all. I first discovered RE1 when my Dads friend gave one he had picked up from somewhere unboxed way back in 1994. It was unboxed but the reason I knew this was part of the official range was that It came with it own little patch on the sides of the vehicle. The immediate trailer was novel as it featured an azimuthing cab in which a small figure could be placed and a winch. At the end of the winch cable was an adapter which could be clipped into the front or back of another explorer, this was to rescue Explorers that a had fallen down pits or such like.

ME1 is of the flat cab type and is very similar to the Polar Explorer except it has a medical bay mounted on to the top of the immediate trailer which is really nothing more than a kind of cab with a clear canopy. This is also an official vehicle as it has it own patch and the box is featured the Project Sword blog on this site http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2009/06/explorer-12-and-die-cast-space-series.html.

Again nothing is known about any other merchandise associated with this model, books etc or the story behind it. I suspect that there are actually another two models out there of unknown configuration, the reason behind this train of thought is that the first batch was released as four vehicles so its only logical to concluded that the second batch was the same. Also I cant figure out where the '12' fits in the Explorer story, I suspect that twelve vehicles may have been planned should the toys prove a success. Sadly this was not the case as they seem to have disappeared overnight. If you have any information on vehicles or the other two 'phantom' which I believe maybe out there then do please get in touch. I am also interested to find out if these two had books and other merchandise out like the first batch.

The First Batch - Terrain Explorer EX1

The Terrain Explorer was of the flat cab type and if I remember correctly was relatively rare as I only remember ever seeing a few ever on sale, at least in BHS Glasgow. I never had one of these when I was younger but my Dad picked up a battered non functional chassis from a car boot sale a few years back. EX1 was orange in colour and was equipped with a Mechanical Excavator on its immediate trailer. Trailers available were the Dumper Trailer which was a modified version of the Mobile Command Trailers for the Polar and Ocean Explorer with a Dump Body mounted in place of the aft cab, The GR18 Mechanical Grab and the DV27 Basic Haulage Trailer which was exactly the same as the Polar version but coloured orange and came with a spare wheel set.

The First Batch - Space Explorer EX4

The Space Explorer was of the rounded cab type and was similar to the Ocean Explorer except it was blue. Obviously by the nature of its work it didn't come with floatation devices and came with spare wheel sets instead, The immediate trailer came with a mechanical grabber. I don't have the Space Book so I'm lacking the proper names and designations of the trailers. Available types are the Radar Dome trailer, an Oxygen Capsule Carrier and a Mechanical Excavator trailer. I don't remember seeing much of these in BHS at the time, possibly because they had all been bought or maybe they just never stocked much.