Buck Rogers. Flash Gordon. Tom Corbett. The Jetsons. Marvin the Martian. Daffy Duck. Wallace & Gromit. What did this diverse group have in common? Why, cool rockets, of course.The nuts-and-bolts silver tubes with rivets and sharp, angular fins and the brightly painted, sweeping, curvy fins with needle noses and ultra-modern design were the transport of such pulp heroes as Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and Tom Corbett. These sleek designs, born of the early 20th century and perpetuated through tin toys, comic books, films and even cartoons such as The Jetsons and that famed and beloved Daffy Duck cartoon
Duck Dogers, have a timeless quality. There is an elegance and naivete to those simple designs that everyone knows can't possibly work, but we all want to think they could.
Like the Art Deco movement of that era, there is a staying power to the design of these rockets that captures an innocence and optimism that has never faded.
Cool Rockets is a small company, the brainchild of Jeff Brewer, a miniature modeler who has film credits such as
Nightmare Before Christmas,
Men in Black and
Starship Troopers, to name a few. His rocket workshop has been busy since its founding in 1995, producing rockets based on the style of those famous 20th-century rocket ships, but he's been careful to avoid copyrighted designs. The styles are so well defined that this is an easy task.
Jeff describes his rockets as "scale models of the spacecraft you build in your backyard; riveted and welded together from scrap metal and custom outfitted to explore outer space or save the world from evil."
To quote his Web page: "Each rocket design is custom built, molded and hand-cast in resin and then hand-weathered to show the wear and tear of many miles of space travel."
And that's just what they look like. Some of his models are simply display models, while others serve a more utilitarian purpose.
Each Cool Rocket is packed in vacu-forms and hand-packaged with sponge material to protect the sometimes delicate protruding parts. The boxes are simple white corrugated cardboard with glossy printed sheets pasted on that show photos of the finished model and information about the rocket within.
Classic designs, classically crafted Space Tub, Cool Rockets' most recent design, is a stubby silver teardrop-shaped rocket with a large nose, a silver cockpit, sleek red shark fins and a needle nose. Cold-cast from polyresin, Space Tub is hand-finished, complete with a rust patina to add "wear and tear" to the rocket. Decals of a lightning streak through a red circle could have been used in a 1930s pulp comic book. Completing its design is a small pinlike metal lance sticking forward from the fuselage.
Space Tub, modeled after a ship in several Mighty Mouse stories, attaches to a display stand that is a molded plume of blastoff smoke and flame, giving a nice illusion of cartoon motion. The model stands about 7 or 8 inches above the table, and is about 10 inches in length from its plume to its needle nose.
Space Patrol Tin Toy is not in fact made of tin, but it's painted to look as if it were, including painted dirt and rust, and the illusion is quite real. It's hard to tell it's not made of tin until you pick it up. Designed as a standard cigar-shaped ship with straight fins, this one is painted in an ivory with brightly colored appliques that simulate portholes.
Standing more than 11 inches tall, Space Patrol is a functional coin bank, with a coin slot near the top and a plastic plug where its engine would be. Pull the plug and out pour the coins.
Big Boy Rocket is a very fat 8-inch green rocket reminiscent of the orange rocket Wallace and Gromit used to get to the moon in their short film "A Grand Day Out." It is painted in a green copper-patina look, with orange highlights around the portholes, with orange lightning streaks on the three broad, fat tail fins. Between two fins is a heavily riveted door. This model is sturdy and fat and has many molded rivets and a patina finish that again makes it look as if it were tacked together from junk metal.
Big Boy also serves as a night light. The translucent plastic nose cone and the three oval portholes light up a golden yellow with the aid of a removable LED light, powered by two AAA batteries.
As for price, each of these costs in the vicinity of $60. But keep in mind that each one is hand-cast, hand-painted and hand-packed. And that, combined with the excellence of the above qualities, makes these cheap at twice the price.
Many more retro-designed models are available, including a pewter casting of one of his most popular designs. Jeff can be contacted for custom work, such as adding your company's logo or color scheme to any ship or a 6-foot-tall display case in the design of the Space Patrol ship. You really can commission your own fleet. —Sean
