Like most guys "of a certain age," I had a rather large collection of these toys as a child. Here are a couple of vids from Pathé News describing how Matchbox cars were made once upon a time.
I was surprised to find out Matchbox cars are still being made and marketed, albeit not in Britain. Lesney, the original manufacturers of Matchbox cars, went bankrupt in 1982; Mattel owns the brand now after it changed hands a few times. The Wiki has everything you could possibly want to know about Matchbox cars and a few things you prolly don't.
H/t: Hemmings Daily.
I was surprised to find out Matchbox cars are still being made and marketed, albeit not in Britain. Lesney, the original manufacturers of Matchbox cars, went bankrupt in 1982; Mattel owns the brand now after it changed hands a few times. The Wiki has everything you could possibly want to know about Matchbox cars and a few things you prolly don't.
H/t: Hemmings Daily.
Those little rigs were always the coolest things.
ReplyDeleteBtw, if you haven't seen this guy's blog yet, check it out. Among (many) other things, he's a serious model car collector. Here's the latest in the series, which has stretched back for several years
http://www.joesherlock.com/My-Model-Cars4.html#6-19-14
Oh, man. There's a lot of not-so-wasted hours there.
DeleteI'm too old for Matchbox. In my days we had Dinky Toys, which we raced in the school playground.
ReplyDeleteI had a few of those as well!
DeleteBuck/
ReplyDeleteDid you know that they also made military models of Britains Army, AF--tanks, arty, fighters etc? These were usually several times larger than the cars. Their tanks were 6-7 in long, iirc. All in full detail, revolving turrets, etc.
Yep, I knew that... what with having MANY of said military models.
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