by Steve McKinnon

Jeff Tracy, with the help of a genius nicknamed 'Brains', created five special vehicles called Thunderbirds for each of his five sons. Together they formed a secret team called 'International Rescue'. Specific Thunderbirds would be dispatched to help civilians in distress, whether that be in space, undersea or on land.

However, not every government was comfortable with the activities of the secret team. Soon, International Rescue was labelled a band of glory-seeking vigilantes, despite their simple wish to help others.

A phony disaster lured all five Thunderbirds into a trap. Scott Tracy, piloting Thunderbird 1, was first on the scene. He was shot down beforehe could warn his brothers Virgil and Gordon in Thunderbird 2. It was destroyed as well, taking the submersible Thunderbird 4 with it. Alan Tracy, aboard the spaceship Thunderbird 3, was tricked into docking with the space station Thunderbird 5, unaware of the nuclear bomb aboard that would destroy both craft, as well as the last son, John Tracy.

Overcome with grief and anger, Jeff Tracy lost his mind and swore revenge. He tricked his old friend 'Brains' into rebuilding the Thunderbirds for the purpose of continuing the good that International Rescue had accomplished. He then had a scientist clone his five sons, but with the darker, evil side that he himself had adopted. With the new ships ready, Tracy took Brains prisoner while he outfitted the new craft with firepower the originals had never possessed.

Renaming them 'Thunderstrikes, Jeff Tracy and his cloned sons launched a war of revenge from their secret base in the middle of the ocean.

International Revenge was born.

The Model

I started with an Imai Thunderbird 1 model. It originally came with a set of wheels that I had to work around because I didn't want it to look like a toy.

The wings could be made to fan out but I didn't like how that let you see straight through the model, so I installed a small length of car engine parts to simulate the intrior workings of the ship. The stock nose cone is blunt, and not nasty-looking enough for the ship's new purpose as an attack craft, so I sanded it to a point.

There were four holes in the hull where a button would swing the wings and wheels out. I plugged the first two with small car model parts. The third was filled with a machine gun from a helicopter model. The last hole was left open as an exhaust for a VTOL jet.

I turned the smaller stabilizer wings backward into a "v" shape on 3 of the four engine sections to emphasize International Revenge's mission. Un the gap where the rear wheels would have gone, I installed large laser cannons and two nuclear missiles from other models.

Wheras Thunderbird 1 was a force of good, painted a benevolent silver, blue and red, Thunderstrike 1 was a vessel of war. I spray painted it metallic black with blood red trim. I used dry-transfer letters for the word 'Thunderstrike' and a '1' custom made from a white stripe decal from a car kit.

Image:Top view

Image: Bottom view

Image: Front view

Image:Rear view