Bob's making some space giveaway #2: Lionel no. 16718 USMC Missile Launching Car

The Marine Corps Missile Launching car was listed in Lionel's Spring 1996 catalog.

The car can be used to shoot rockets at random, or to hit targets from balloon cars, exploding boxcars, or postwar bunkers.

The car has been sitting on a shelf and has never left the box.

REMEMBER: Don't use foreign objects!

Ties are as tight as the day they were packaged in Michigan!

The IRBM car has a notable Cold War history, being shown first in Lionel's 1959 catalog.

Bob’s making some space giveaway #2

The Lionel no. 16718 US Marine Corps Missile Launching Car.

So this one is an inter-service rivalry giveaway. As an ex-Air Force missileer, I’ve always been highly skeptical of giving Marines the means to fire explosives further than, say, that pillbox over there. So I figure that this car would be happier in a collection where it would actually be fired!

This time the no. 16718 Marine Corps missile launching car is up for grabs. Seriously, I bought this because this was a fairly early Lionel Trains Inc. reproduction of the venerable no. 6650 IRBM rocket launcher car. I don't believe this was offered in the MPC-era. The 6650 was part of Lionel’s space and missile craze in the late 1950s and early 60s.

Around the same time I bought one of the balloon target cars and used one of my vintage no. 6650s to hit the target (not!). So having demonstrated a lack of Lionel missile marksmanship that would have appalled any Lionel kid in 1962, the car stayed in the box.

The box has some shelf wear, but has otherwise been untouched since I bought it (probably a pre-order from Eastside Trains in Kirkland, Washington and shipped to me in Wisconsin).

The car was first cataloged in Lionel’s Spring 1996 booklet. When this car was released, Lionel didn’t list retail prices in its catalog. It does, however, still have the store sticker on it of $49.95. The current Greenberg’s Pocket Price Guide shows a value range of $26-$31.

If you’d like to take a chance at winning this car, go to the CTT Facebook page and enter the “Bob’s Making Some Space” giveaway. If you aren’t on Facebook, sorry, I can’t help you there. Check if your kids or grandkids are!

I believe that the winner will be selected on November 27th!

Remember …

To enter, “Like” and comment on the Bob’s Making Some Space Giveaway post on Classic Toy Trains magazine's Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/ClassicToyTrains/ 

This Sweepstakes is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with Facebook.