1983:Rainbow Ponies

WINDY

lavender unicorn with dark pink, yellow, green and blue mane and tail, glittering gusts of wind symbol

Windy was my first pony, so naturally I took a great interest in her as a child. She very rarely appeared in the Pony Comic, but she was characterised as being one of the fastest of the little ponies, running so quickly that all that could be seen was her tail, streaming out behind her like a rainbow. In fact, if the Fact File is to be believed, only Whizzer ever had Windy beaten for speed!

Windy herself started off life in lavender, but most Windys found second hand are more beige than lavender.

The White Windy Controversy
There have been rumours for several years about the existence of a white version of Windy - some say with blue symbols - but the firm proof for this pony existing is somewhat lacking. Unlike White Tootsie, who is well documented both loose, and MOC, White Windy has never been traced to any official release. I have never seen a blue symbolled Windy, but I do know that purple (Windy's actual symbol colour) can sometimes fade to blue in sunlight, which adds credence to the idea of a faded Windy being the mythical White Windy.

It is also highly possible that this pony is a batch colour variation to do with dye.

Below are some pictures of the Windy versions in our collection. One of them is naturally very pale in body tone colour, and the body colour is even all over the body, so is her natural tone. I am going to leave it up to people to decide for themselves what they believe :) What I will say is that there are clear variations in how the symbol is painted from pony to pony.

PALE WINDY, CHILDHOOD WINDY, MINT LAVENDER WINDY
My Windy has been with me since 1984, and you can see in places where her body tone has faded. In comparison, you cannot see this on the pale Windy. She is the same colour all over, which is a paler shade than my faded Windy and much paler than the lavender one- but I would not necessarily call it "white."

Comparing the heads of Pale Windy and Unfaded Windy.

Comparing Pale Windy to Glory (a white pony) and my faded Windy from childhood. From this you can see that Pale Windy is paler than my childhood pony, but she is not as white as Glory, making her probably a pale batch variation with less dye, rather than an active attempt at a white pony.

My conclusion is that the pale pony is a legitimate variation in tone, but is probably not a definitively unique 'White Windy' release.

But, as I said, it's up to everyone to decide for themselves...

 

Thanks to straightdealstoys for the picture of Windy MOC.