- Year: 1994
- Size: Wingspan when unfolded about 15 inches.
- Product Line: Unproduced by Kenner (Tonka).
This Mini Drop was created by Kenner for their ALIENS line as a follow up vehicle to their already released 1992 Stinger, Evac Fighter and Hovertread vehicles but was never released. Kenner also intended the Mini Dropship to be a companion piece to their much larger, movie accurate Dropship play set which was intended to be released in 1994/5 which was also cancelled.
A notable action feature of the Mini Dropship was its folding wings. These were to support wing tip mounted weapons nacelles to emulate the feature seen in the popular dropship vehicle appearing in ALIENS.
Images courtesy of Derek Ho.
The Mini Dropship came close to production as an item in the ALIENS toy range as these test shot images testify before the product was terminated. It’s cancellation was only short lived. The Mini Dropship was resurrected and re-purposed to finally be released with different colour finish and markings under SABAN’s VR Troopers toy line in 1994. The line was based on a live action superhero TV series with the toy being released as the VR Pursuit Jet for that action figure range.
It is possible to ‘reverse engineer’ one of these SABAN’s toys and return it to the ALIENS Mini Dropship Kenner originally intended it to be. Here’s one below modified by Eric Christian Magee. As the off the shelf SABAN’s craft used largely unchanged molds originally intended for the Kenner toy, it only required a repaint and some light sanding with a clear coat finishing the piece.
The final custom work matches the look and tone of other ALIENS vehicles released by Kenner a number of years earlier. The Kenner Vasquez figure looks comfortable here and at home piloting this customised SABAN’s vehicle, originally intended for the Kenner ALIENS toy line.
Here’s another modified version of the SABAN’s customised VR Pursuit Jet to appear more like Kenner’s original Mini Dropship. This dark grey custom piece was created by Eric Fischer. Only the body and wheels have been painted with no other alterations to the vehicles structure being necessary. Appropriately, Kenner’s 1992 Space Marine O’Malley action figure is piloting this vehicle.
