Giant 1950s robot Gygan up for sale

Gygan, a giant radio-controlled robot, which more than half a century ago entranced the world by flashing its car headlamp-like eyes, turning its head stiffly from left to right, and shuffling forwards at the terrifying speed of 10 feet a minute, is to be auctioned after decades hidden in a private collection.

The eight-foot-tall creature, weighing 1,000lbs, was launched at a trade fair in Milan in 1957, the same year as the first satellite, Sputnik, was launched into space. Its designer, Piero Fiorito, an engineer from Turin, puzzlingly insisted it looked like "a proud Englishman".

Gygan, launched decades before the first home computer, was regarded as sophisticated for its day, capable of responding to spoken or light ray commands. It could pick up objects, and at its equally successful appearance at a fair at Olympia in London, it danced jerkily with a model – who clearly hadn't seen the crushed base of the tin can it had just picked up.

One journal for amateur model-makers, Radio Control Models and Electronics, complained that "no data is offered on radio control circuits or servos in use" but deduced that Gygan contained Meccano and at least 20 electrical relays. Fiorito claimed it had 300,000 components, but the journal rather sniffily described its construction as "comparatively simple". It will be auctioned at Christie's South Kensington in September, with an estimate of up to £8,000.

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