Early Christmas Present

My nephew, and fellow toy collector, John, just sent me a Christmas present the other day. I had a guess as to what it might be, because he had told me what he was up to in a text, but when I got it, I couldn't believe how cool it was. He sent me a 3D printed six-inch scale Skyhawk for my GI Joe classified figures.

This is an upsized reproduction of a toy they put out in the GI Joe line back in 1984, the height of my GI Joe collecting.

Here's a commercial from the day that shows it in action.

I looked for a video that shows it in the cartoon,  but, though I know it was in dozens of episodes of the cartoon, I didn't quickly find anywhere that someone had that information categorized, so I moved on.

There were a few problems that I ran into. Most notably was that one of the side panels of the ship broke in transit.

It glued back together pretty easily with super glue, though.

I think I'll give it a little weathering, and once that is done, I suspect you won't even be able to see the glue residue anymore.

GI Joe was, like Star Wars, a line a toys that centered around the vehicles. The figures were smaller than the standard had been, specifically so that you could put your guys into the turret of a tank or in the cockpit of a jet plane. 

They've made very few vehicles for the six-inch line, though. The scale of the figures seems to prohibit it. They started out making only the very smallest of vehicles...and charging you through the nose for the privilege of owning them.

First, was the Cobra Flight Pod, or Trubble Bubble. This is one of my favorite vehicles, and I owned one as a kid.

They also made Serpentor with his Air Chariot. Another favorite of mine that I had as a kid.

But I have neither of those things, because they wanted around $80 for the things.

It only got worse when they decided to make the first real vehicle for the line, the Cobra HISS tank. That was always one of my favorite vehicles from the 80s too. Usually, I only had the smallest of vehicles, like the Air Chariot or the Flight Pod because they were cheap, but I actually had a HISS tank as a kid despite its size. That wouldn't be the case with the new HISS though. They put it out as a part of their HASLAB setup, which is where they crowdfund toys. They wanted...I can't remember but it was either $300 or $400 for the thing. Sorry, but I have a mortgage to pay, and I ain't got money for something like a $400 toy, so I had to forego it again.

I think they've done one of the Jeeps from the line since then, but that was pretty costly too...not as bad as the HISS, but still beyond my abilities. I'll let the One Percent have those toys, I guess.

I did get the motorcycle they made for the line. That was the Ram Cycle, and my nephew, John, found that on clearance and picked one up for me and sent it out from California.

So, for the most part, I've been unfamiliar with the scale of the GI Joe Classified vehicles. The motorcycle didn't seem inordinately huge. I had heard that the HISS tank was huge, but I'd never really seen one.

The Skyhawk was always one of the smallest vehicles available for GI Joes in the 80s. It's kind of surprising that I didn't have one, because that seemed like the kind of thing my parents could afford as a present for me. So, getting this six-inch scale Skyhawk just kind of flabbergasts me. It's freaking huge! I took this picture to show the scale next to my 3.75 inch scale AT-AT.

It's basically as big as the whole body of the thing. Keep in mind that this AT-AT is an extra large, closer to actual scale AT-AT than what they'd given us back in the 80s Kenner toyline. Yet, it's still close in size...for the one man ship. It's so wild. No wonder Classified doesn't make a lot of vehicles.

It's pretty awesome to have a vehicle like this, and it automatically becomes one of the most impressive things in my collection. I'm not even sure if I have a space big enough for it on my shelves. I'll probably have to readjust some things to fit it. But I definitely will, because it's so neat. It's also great, because I didn't have to take out a second mortgage to afford it.

Although, in writing this post, I discovered that they have the Cobra Stinger for Classified now...oh man, do I want that thing.

They want $100 for it. I wonder if there's any chance I could raise that money...somehow...