Superfast 1969-1982
Rick Wilson charts the evolution of the Matchbox Superfast range during the Lesney years, from 1969 to 1982.
jobs can be found - it's just one of those colours that seems to suffer more. Occasionally, a run of Hot Pink would leave the factory too.
The interior is yellow and the window unit is tinted green. To the sides, the stickers changed during the run with a black only version to begin with (as per the box art shown on page 66) and the more stylised, coloured version came later, as seen on the model at the top of page 67.
DE TOMASO PANTERA
Catalogue: 1975-81
Box Styles: J
The V8-powered De Tomaso Pantera was a good replication, capturing the wide stance of the real car very well. It had a good run in the range and was nearly always white with blue, orange and black stickers to the sides and nose. Later releases were produced with an unpainted base, presumably as a cost-cutting exercise. The interior and rear deck are moulded in an orange plastic, the shade of which could vary. The Pantera is also one of those models that can be found with alternative stickers from other models - a fairly common practice at the Lesney factory if the correct stickers had run out temporarily.
For the US Market, Pantera was blue with white markings. Many years later, long after the Lesney era had ended, the casting was revived and a protruding rear engine added in place of the louvred rear deck - this was renamed Greased Lightning.
ROVER 3500
Catalogue: 1982
Box Styles: L
Replicating Rover's flagship SD1, this was a really good reproduction and even featured a working sun roof. A very short initial production run in yellow with a red interior is hard to get hold of, and pricey when you find one. The more regular colour is the metallic reddy-bronze shown here, with a tan interior and black plastic sunroof, the only colour retained from the yellow car. This model is also notable for being one of the first to have a plastic base.
In the post-Lesney era, the casting was modified with roof-mounted lights and painted white, with 'jam sandwich' stripes added, replicating the numerous police cars seen on UK roads.