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I think I'm right in saying that the Vehicle Maintenance Energizer is the only one among all the 1977 to 1983 Star Wars vehicles, ships and mini-rigs which didn't have a gun on it with the exception of PDT-8 and rarities such as the Droid Factory and Sand Crawler. The Vehicle Maintenance Energizer was really the Star Wars toy that, if you went down to your local department store and that's all they had left on the shelves or that was all you could afford, then that was the time you bought it.

Find Vehicle Maintenance Energizer Mini-Rig on eBay

The Kenner Vehicle Maintenance Energizer mini-rig is quite a versatile toy and could be used as a maintenance unit for your Rebel Armoured Snowspeeder, X-Wing or Y-Wing Fighter, or you could even give Han one of the 8 tools to fix up the Millennium Falcon. The Vehicle Maintenance Energizer tools are quite hard to come by these days and most of the Hoth Energizers for sale on eBay come without any and often without the rubber maintenance pipes with their sucker ends as well. I have managed to get a few complete sets of tools which have been hidden away in job lots.

Like the PDT-8 the Kenner Vehicle Maintenance Energizer provided a practical bit of equipment to have around your hangar bay, without just focussing on fighter ships, weapons and battles. With the 8-part tool set it provided something to put in your action figures' hands other than blasters and lightsabers for the first time. Now Chewie could fix up the Falcon, you could set your X-Wing pilot up to the task of maintaining his ship whilst the energiser cable could be put to use charging up your Rebel Troop Transport. We had the start of a trend towards scene building.

Then the mail-away Hoth Survival Kit took this one step further giving us some additional equipment in the form of backpacks, breathing apparatus, spare rifles and a grappling hook, as well as a few pieces from other scenes in the movie. The scene of Echo Base gradually started to take shape (One of the hooks has come off my grappling hook and I don't think I'll ever manage to re-attach the string to the belt).

The 8 tools could be hung on the top of the Energizer or stored away in the compartments beneath. The swivel feature of the Vehicle Maintenance Energizer provided a storage solution for the tools which wasn't entirely successful since it only took a small knock for the contents to fall out on to the carpet and hence the Energizer's toolset often diminished in number quite rapidly the more you played with it.

In the US the commercial for the Vehicle Maintenance Energizer extended the possibilities of play by showing this as an Imperial tool station which could repair a Scout Walker (AT-ST). The commerical is from 1981, a stunning two years before the Return of the Jedi was released and the kids in the States are getting AT-ST walkers in their shops! 37 years later and I'm still suffering from toy envy. You can watch the commerical on Youtube here.

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All Star Wars action figures, vehicles, collectibles and Star Wars toys shown on this website are the 3.75 inch scale and from my own private Star Wars collection unless otherwise stated. Where possible original vintage accessories have been used but in some instances I have placed Kenner Star Wars figures with either reproduction weapons and accessories or for Hasbro figures close approximations have been used. This is mostly the case for modern Star Wars lightsabers where the correct item can be very difficult to identify on some ocassions. Vintage Star Wars action figures are shown with their original weapon or accessory when I have them. When a vintage Kenner action figure is shown with an accessory which is not original I have tried to point this out where possible.

All of the Star Wars action figures shown were purchased second hand, usually incomplete, and in bulk. They have been reunited with their original weapons and accessories where we could get hold of them.

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