Robby’s Moon Car: Where Science Fiction Meets Automobiles

In the April 1995 issue of Collecting Toys, writer Catherine Saunders-Watson spotlighted one of the most imaginative blends of car culture and space-age fantasy: the Robby Space Patrol series, produced in the 1950s by Nomura of Japan. What began with the Forbidden Planet-inspired Robby Space Patrol soon branched into the Moon Space Ship and, most automotive of all, the Moon Patrol Car (Space Division No. 3).

The Moon Patrol Car

At first glance, the Moon Patrol Car looks like a futuristic rover. Yet beneath its tinplate gleam lies a clear debt to mid-century automobile design. The elongated chassis suggests a Detroit dream car, complete with streamlined stamping and decorative edges. A revolving globe, lithographed astronauts, and Robby at the controls transformed it into a rolling vision of optimism from the dawn of the Space Age.

Packaging reinforced the automotive tie-in. The scarce Moon Patrol Car box—with its atomic bursts and shooting stars—read more like a concept-car ad than a toy carton. Collectors prize these subtle variations in paint, chrome, and lithography, just as automotive historians study trim details that distinguish one year’s model from the next.

Why It Matters

At first glance, a tin toy like the Moon Patrol Car might seem distant from the brochures, manuals, and postcards preserved in the Merrick Auto Museum archives. Yet they share a common thread: vehicles—whether real or imagined—capturing the public’s imagination. In the 1950s, automakers borrowed styling cues from rockets and satellites, while toy makers distilled that same space-age optimism into playful, battery-powered form.

Just as Hudson’s endurance runs or Rambler’s postcard campaigns demonstrated how automobiles symbolized progress and possibility, toys like the Moon Patrol Car show how transportation became more than mobility. It was a dream, a cultural language that spilled from the highway to the playroom, from advertising art to science fiction films.

The April 1995 issue of Collecting Toys that profiled Robby’s Moon Car preserves this moment in collecting history. Original issues of Collecting Toys, along with other vintage toy and automobilia magazines, are available in our website store.