Mars Rovers

Closest that I saw was that set from Mattel Hot Wheels a couple of years back. It had a 1:25 (very broad +/-) rover like that little one in the intro of Star Trek Enterprise. There was another in the set, maybe 1:72 (again VB+/-) inside the open lander. Check eBay, I've seen them there from time to time. There was another set, Furuta (Japanese gumball models) that had a pretty nice Viking lander (I know, not a rover) and a bunch of space probes. Again - eBay. HTH

-- John (aka the Old Timer)

At the LA Toy Show, Sun Star had one in 1/18:

You probably won't see any OFFICIALLY licensed mars rovers from any major model kit manufacturers due to licensing agreements. The most recent agreement that I'm aware of states that NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL, and it's "parent" the California Institute of Technology in Pasedena, CA has exclusively licensed all Mars rover (i.e. Spirit & Opportunity) toy and model rights to LEGO. LEGO has marketed at least two versions of the current Mars rovers, a small one included with a Mars Orbiter and Delta II launch vehicle and a larger scale one.

Mattel was one of the first toy/model intellectual property licencees for JPL. Mattel produced a Hot Wheels set for the Mars Pathfinder Sojourner Rover back in 1997 which included the cruise stage capsule, Carl Sagan Memorial Station, and the Sojourner rover. This Hot Wheels set was a great success for Mattel and JPL. JPL then licensed a Hot Wheels set for the Galileo mission to Jupiter which included a Europa probe, Goldstone tracking station antenna, and the Galileo spacecraft itself. The Mattel/JPL partnership finally ran out of steam when Mattel was licensed to produce a Hot Wheels set titled "JPL Returns to Mars". This set included the Mars Polar Lander, its Deep Space 2 microprobe, and the Mars Climate Orbiter. You may recall that the Mars Climate Orbiter was lost due to a metric/English units conversion anomaly and the Mars Polar Lander crashed while landing due to premature descent engine shutdown. Thus, what Mattel in reality produced was the "Mars Failure" pack. This Hot Wheels set was in limited distribution prior to the MPL crash in the JPL gift shop. After this last failure, distribution was halted and the "JPL Returns to Mars" Hot Wheels set sat in the warehouse. About a year later it apparently found its way into clearance stores such as Tuesday Morning. Needless to say, this Hot Wheels set is rare and highly prized by collectors. Mattel also produced Hot Wheels sets for "John Glenn's return to space" and for Project Apollo. After all these Mattel sets were released, LEGO became the owner of the rights to market JPL-related spacecraft toys & models.

More info:

If you are willing to consider a paper (card stock) model you can find one for free at

For scratchbuilders there used to be a detailed CAD drawing of the rovers online but the file was apparently taken down due to copyright issues.

Regards, Ralph