All Photos By Gail
Lost in Space was a popular sci-fi television series (1965 to 1968) that used Johann David Weiss’s 19th century novel Swiss Family Robinson as a template. The series imagined an overcrowded earth in the year 1997, with humans sent to space to colonize other planets.
The show featured the Robinson family, and crew members, looking for a habitable earth-like home near Alpha Centauri, and their Jupiter 2 spacecraft included two mechanical stars of the show: a charismatic robot and the exceptional off-world chariot that carried the team on land explorations.
Their overland journeys on far flung planets left an indelible impression on fans of the show, as the design of the chariot was superb, combining 1960s haute ski vibes with outer space silver reflective curtains.
The original TV chariot was lost on Earth for many years, so John Antonellis of Boston’s Elevator Interior Design fabricated this exquisite replica as the ultimate fan homage, built atop a Thiokol Spryte Sno Cat of the same vintage as the original 1965 chariot.
This remote-controlled model was used in filming on miniature sets, when locations on earth lacked the necessary alien drama. For young fans of the show, the use of this model was an extra draw, as passion for scale models and slot-car racing were running high.
Photographed in the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
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What happened to the original chariot? I know after the TV series ended it was sold to a ski resort in Big Bear California Sno Forest they removed the plexiglass top and used it for packing snow unit I used to play with the top as a boy later it was stolen after that no one knows
Actually the Chariot was amphibious. I forgot what episode it crossed a large body of water.
Very cool!
Chris Tietz has it. https://www.lostintoys.com/museum/charprop.html