Star Trek: The Next Generation Shuttlecraft (1988)
The only figure-scaled vehicle to see the light of day during Galoob’s brief license to produce Star Trek: The Next Generation action figures, this Shuttlecraft Galileo is a faithful reproduction of the impossibly-aerodynamic, futuristically curved Enterprise-D shuttles seen during the show’s first two seasons on the air.
Based on the gorgeous shuttle design devised by Andrew Probert, this shuttle - scaled to seat only a few of the 3 3/4″ Galoob Next Generation figures - gets most of the major external details right. (Click here to see the rest of the article plus pictures.)
Based on Bryan Hitch’s “organic” design for the new series’ TARDIS, the Character Options Doctor Who TARDIS playset is a colossus made of plastic and, in a few places, cardboard. Neatly replicating a surprising amount of detail from the actual studio set used for the show itself, this TARDIS may be one of the finest translations from practical set to mass-market toy I’ve ever seen. 
Kenner had a bit of a challenge when it came to the vehicles of The Empire Strikes Back. While the Death Star was no more, it seemed that many of the movie’s vehicles still wound up on the “big” end of the scale, from the newly unveiled Super Star Destroyer to its complement of literally monstrous AT-ATs. If you wanted new vehicles more on the scale of fighters, there were new variations on the TIE Fighter, the Snowspeeder, and the even more obscure Twin-Pod Cloud Car seen patrolling the skies of Bespin. 
Introduced in The Empire Strikes Back, Slave I was the strong, silent and mysterious steed of the saga’s strong, silent and mysterious new character, Boba Fett. In either movie or toy terms, it was a really interesting concept - a ship which, if one looked at it from traditional aerodynamic thinking, looked like it should fly one way, but instead seems to heft itself up on its side to fly in a completely different way. For kids like me who hadn’t grown up with the Apollo program and its completely non-aerodynamic lunar landers, this was a wild concept. 
While determining the scale of the Millennium Falcon vehicle may have set in stone the 3 3/4″ scale of Kenner’s Star Wars figures, the Falcon itself didn’t arrive in the toy stores until 1979. The first vehicles to appear were, in fact, Luke’s landspeeder, a TIE fighter and the iconic Rebel X-Wing fighter. 
These days, toy manufacturers - including Hasbro, makers of the current line of Star Wars toys - have to pack an exclusive figure or something similarly enticing in with a vehicle in order to lure consumers and collectors in to buy the vehicle. But for the original Kenner Star Wars line, the Millennium Falcon was the first toy designed - even before the figures. 
Released in the U.K. in 1988 to coincide with the 25th anniversary of Doctor Who, which at the time was still in its original run, entering its second season with Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor, this Dapol playset was the only toy representation of the TARDIS interior until Character Options’ marvelous playset modeled on the new series’ TARDIS set. Unlike many Dapol toys, such as the TARDIS’ Police Box exterior, certain elements of this set were never manufactured or made available again, making it a true collectors’ item. 
Released to coincide both with Christmas 2006 and the 40th anniversary of the launch of the original Star Trek, this year’s main Star Trek Christmas ornaments are a testament to just how far we’ve come from the original NCC-1701 ornament - assuming that engineering is on the ball and everything is working. 
Very closely resembling a similar line of Star Wars “Titanium Series” die-cast (or partially die-cast) vehicles from Hasbro, these first toys from the new Battlestar Galactica series are pint-sized, packed with detail - and pretty expensive for something that’s just a little bit bigger than a Hot Wheels or Matchbox car was when I was growing up. 