Voltron Water Rocket

This is one of those curiosities that you come across when you are collecting a specific character. When a company licenses its products, sometimes it is hard to keep track of everything that gets produced. While most products must go through a rigorous approval system, some always seem to fall through the cracks.

Such is the case with this Voltron Water Rocket. The water rocket was a popular cheap toy in the 80s that never functioned quite right. The idea behind it is that you fill the rocket with water, and then pump in air to pressurize the rocket. You can then release the latch, and in theory, the rocket shot off. Most of these toys (at least the ones I had), however, broke after the first use.

This is an unusual piece for a few reasons. For one, Voltron 1 didn’t get as much merchandise as Voltron 3 (aka lion Voltron). This holds especially true for Ephemera – there is precious little out there for this character.

I’ve never heard of the Manufacturer, HG Toys. It looks like they were a Hong Kong-based novelty company with offices in Long Beach, New York. While the package is all in English, this package has an import sticker written in Italian, showing it was imported to Italy by a company called Suci Muggio. This toy has gone on quite a journey to end up in my collection.

As to the review of this toy, well… I never took it out of the package. How would I display it? It looks pretty good as it is.

The toy is packaged on a blister card, with the head of Voltron 1 being the rocket, and a key from Voltron 3 being the launcher. The backing card also has a picture of the Castle of Lions, from Voltron 3.

The back of the card features black and white step-by-step instructions on how to launch the rocket.

This exists.