Matchbox Cars were introduced in 1953 by the British toy company, Lesney Products. Initially the company focused on their home market, but the diecast cars soon found an eager worldwide market. Matchbox Cars, as well as another brand, Corgi, flourished until Mattel released their Hot Wheels cars, a line of toy vehicles that featured low-friction wheels. In 1982 Lesney went bankrupt, with the Matchbox brand eventually being acquired by Mattel in 1997.
The first nine pages from a 1969 Matchbox catalog are included here (the cover is page 1), and I’ll eventually include all of them in their sequential order. There’s some interesting stuff here, although some of it was released after my Matchbox/Corgi phase was behind me. (I was never aware of the “Matchbox Motorway”, for example) The only cars on these pages I remember having are the Lotus Racing Car and the London Bus. Additional pages will be included in separate posts.
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Howdy Mark, Found a Hot Wheels Tune-up Tower in the trash few years back, turned it into cash, to buy more TV Lamps of course.
I have a mint #8 mustang, never played with, as well as #3 and two #24 Rolls Royce.