GENEVIEVE - THE FIRST TV/FILM-RELATED MODEL?

to Chris King’s letter in the December 2022 issue, as a young boy, my bedroom window overlooked the A23, so I could watch the London to Brighton veteran car run in relative comfort. Furthering my interest in cars, in 1962, I received a Matchbox Gift Set, which included a 1904 Spyker. Notably this car (Y16) has cast in the registration ‘MC 4595’ as per the car driven by the sleazy Ambrose Claverhouse (Kenneth More) in the film Genevieve. Is this the first unheralded ‘TV/film-related’ model? Perhaps not as various Darracq models appeared, not least the 1/32 Airfix kit, but the only maker I think overtly acknowledging the film was Lone Star producing ‘Genevieve’ in its Road Masters series, being branded Genevieve on both model base and card box. Other film/TV- inspired models, of course, have been produced, for example, in 1961, the superb GMC artic number 948, when the equivalent graced our screens in the Canadian TV series Cannonball, about truckers’ adventures on the road. No Hiding Place, in 1959, introduced us to the Humber police car (a twin-headlight Super Snipe) with Dinky producing similar number 256 on its Hawk casting in 1960. Surprisingly, no French Dinky Citroën Traction Avant was imported to capitalise on the popularity of the TV detective series Maigret (1960) - although the archetypal detective was actually played by Rupert Davies a Liverpudlian by birth, and Liverpool the home of Dinky Toys.

Patrick Hogan, Beaconsfield

ED Awesome investigations there, Patrick – thank you. I think we have the makings of an article on this subject!