[Billzilla]

Hi, first post, etc.

On & off for a couple of years I've been trying to find the brand of toy I had back in the late 1970's. It was like a Meccano kit but definitely not from Meccano.

I had two, I'm pretty sure they were from the same company, one was a mechanical snake and the other a kind-of tank-like machine that used a walking dragline style mechanism to move along.

Both of them had to be assembled, like a Meccano kit, but were not intended to be made into any other type of machine.

The snake was three main parts, each part being about 200mm long (I think! It was a looong time ago) with a hinge at each end of the middle part. The mechanism made the ends move left/right and with the wheels underneath they'd work so it'd move forwards a bit like a snake. Had one or two small electric motors to make it all work.

The other machine was quite complex, and one thing I do remember clearly is that it's the thing that made me first start swearing so it's got great sentimental value.
It had three main sections, a large middle section that held the complex mechanisms, motors, batteries, and controls. The pad on the bottom was about 200mm (?) long and about 100mm or so wide. The two sections on the sides were also that long but the pads on the bottom were much narrower at about 30mm (?) or so.

The middle section had the controls at the front, on a quadrant-type system, with three or maybe four levers that you'd move up & down over detents to make it go forwards, backwards, and turn.

All the metal parts were Meccano-like but plated with nickel or chrome.

They may well have been Japanese, I'm not sure but I'd hesitantly guess so.

I've used as many search terms as I can think of and quizzed ChatGPT as well, but no luck so far.

Can anyone please help? I'll attempt to draw the two machines if that'll help, though with my drawing skills it might be a positive thing.

Edit 1 -
Search terms that I've used so far. I'm struggling to think of anything more that might help the search.

meccano-like toys
meccano-like toys 1970's
meccano-like kits
meccano-like kits 1970's
rare mechanical toys
rare mechanical toys 1970's
rare engineering toys 1970's
rare mechanical kits
rare mechanical toys 1970's
rare engineering toys 1970's
Obscure mechanical toys
Obscure mechanical toys 1970's
Obscure engineering toys 1970's
Obscure mechanical kits
Obscure mechanical kits 1970's
Obscure engineering kits 1970's
All those search terms with specific countries added; Japanese, French, American, German as well.


I'll attempt to draw how it looked and do another edit to add the images. Apologies to the moderators, but it seems that any extra posts I make just don't get added so I have to edit this first one.