Supercar (TV series) series proposed to the BBC by Hugh Woodhouse that was never produced. Anderson would later claim that the whole point of having a series based on a vehicle was to minimize having to show the marionettes walking, an action which he felt never looked convincing. The plot of the show consisted of Supercar, a vertical takeoff and landing craft invented by Prof. Rudolph Popkiss and Dr. Horatio Beaker, and piloted by Mike Mercury. On land it rode on a cushion of air rather than wheels. Jets in the rear allowed it to fly like a jet and retractable wings were
Gerry Anderson near the Poland–Russia border and settled in London; his name was changed to "Abrahams" by an immigration official upon his arrival in 1895. Anderson's Jewish mother Deborah changed the family name to "Anderson" in 1939. At the start of the Second World War, Gerry Anderson's elder brother, Lionel, volunteered for service in the Royal Air Force; he was stationed in the United States for advanced training. Lionel often wrote letters to his family, and in one letter described a US Army Air Forces air base called Thunderbird Field, the name of which stayed in his younger brother's memory. On 16