It’s Swag Swensday! That’s when we kick down some sweet, sweet swag to Autopian Members, the cool-kids club for car people that you really should have joined already. What’s the holdup? You can get in on the fun with a Cloth Tier membership for a mere seven bucks a month (or break off $50 to cover the year, which works out to way less than five dollars a month). There’s even more fun with the Cloth, Velour, and Rich Corinthian Leather tiers. Become an Autopian Member today!
You may recall that our last Swag Swensday was devoted to Hot Wheels cars, which I have too many of. Surprise: I still have too many of them, so I’ll dispense with a fresh gang of cars today. But this time, we’ll do Matchbox models – which really may as well be Hot Wheels since Mattel owns both brands, but Mattel does a pretty good job of giving the Matchbox brand its own identity based on the selection of cars assigned to the brand, and the way they’re packaged – little boxes, specifically. Not exclusively in boxes, but there are boxes!
I’m old enough to remember scoring genuine pre-Mattel, Lesney-made Matchbox cars at the long-gone Ben Franklin store in Bristol, RI. My other go-to toys were green army men, Guillows gliders, and the occasional rubber snake, but mostly I went for the little boxed cars.
The brand had updated its cars with Superfast wheels by the time I was a customer, so I found Matchbox to be indistinguishable from Hot Wheels (which Ben Franklin also carried), but something about those boxes and the big reveal of opening the package really did it for me. They just hit different, as the kids say.
And so, I still like picking up boxed Matchbox cars if the subjects are interesting. And now I’ll enjoy sharing some with you. Autopian Members, watch your mailboxes, these Matchbox cars may be coming your way!
Not a Member? Gee whiz, get with the program. Join today!
Set a land speed record at the Ohio mile in 2015 in a Fiat 500 Turbo. https://youtu.be/P6g2MVHJEM8?si=GSllfTN9uTI2xglx
Brian Lohnes announcing.
The beginning of Bassackwards racing 🙂
I’m impressed they didn’t speed limit it. The first gen 500e abruptly stops accelerating at 88 mph. Very disappointing they did that.
They did limit the 500T to 130mph but I had an piggyback ECU from 500madness that removed the limiter. Still couldn’t get to 135 but I was too chicken to increase tire pressures to 50psi (we ran 40) as we drove it to the track.
I was always (and still am) an equal opportunity guy. Hot Wheels, Matchbox, and any of the other mfrs when I was a kid. If it was a cool car I was interested. Then of course I had to have sets of constructions vehicles, emergency vehicles, military, etc. You had to spread the wealth around for that.
These days I still have an unhealthy collection, some packaged, most open. And the diecast collector show twice a year doesn’t help/hurt.
I was surprised to learn there is at least a handful of Ben Franklins out there, including this one in Iowa. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGJqAzZpcpA
Oh wow, the memories unearthed from that one photo of the green wagon. I got it as a hand-me-down. Because I was born in 1976, the cars I rode in were a bit newer than that malaise era wagon but I saw them hulking around everywhere when I was young. It must have influenced me a great deal, since I still want a Volvo 240 wagon, or a Mercedes E-class wagon. I also owned 9 Subarus, 8 of which were wagons. They are great packaging solutions when compared to a crossover. The big dogs like them more too. It really should be about the dogs, then the cars.
I appreciate the feel of a Matchbox in a box rather than a blister pack. I had pre Superfast and even some early ones with just a casting and no interior or windows. The first one I bought myself was a Greyhound Scenicruiser from our of the display case in the old fashioned newsstand/tobacconist/office supply store near the train station. There was a toy store across the street but dad was a pipe smoker so we shopped on his turf.
Matchbox is usually better for realism but Hot Wheels has made more “normal” cars lately including Brazilian VWs. I have a Brasilia and an SP2, along with a Mazda REPU and a Mk II Escort RS2000.
My buddy and my cousin collected both Matchbox and Hot Wheels. Also some of the no-name stuff. My favorite was the FWD Dodge Charger, Porsche 928, Nissan Axxess. They really took a beating, and sometimes I’d repaint them with the Testors paints from my model kits.
The quality, detail and diversity of castings from Mattel via their Matchbox and Hot Wheels brand has been hot fiery fire over the last few years. I’ve been buying a LOT of them.
I love that they brought back the boxes, although they’re even harder to find than the standard blister packs, and they don’t have a closing flap like the originals. You have to carefully cut through the dot of glue with a letter opener and then the flap just hangs there. 99% there, Matchbox!
I had that EXACT Mercury Colony Park with the doggos in the wayback. One of my favorites. I’m on my third go-round collecting Matchbox cars … and this time, I’ve stocked up on those plastic cases from Amazon that hold eight 1:64 models.
Awesome swag! (Raising hand) I was a Matchbox and Tomica kid/adult over Hot Wheels. I preferred “real” street cars rather than souped-up fantasy racers that were unrealistic purchases as kid-me mapped out my auto future. The Lesney Matchboxes were solid, sturdy, detailed, and rolled well. I also liked the Tomica cars because they had the undercarriage detail, even if they were lighter weight and less durable.
This gave me today’s excuse (ahem, “purpose in the name of research”) to get my plastic car case with a carefully-curated collection I hid before leaving home. The packaging is long gone, but may have been clamshells rather than paper boxes. Turns out I have a 1978 green Cougar Villager similar to the pic above (though mine has the rectangular headlights). But there’s room for more.
Same here, to date myself among the Hot Wheels my favorites were the Chevy Citation and Dodge O24. I didn’t know about the K-car wagon until the Internet era but if I’d seen one back in the day…
The Dodge 024 / Charger was my favorite. Think it was called Turbo Heater.
Hum Drum cars were the best! It was a Hot Wheels, but my Fireball Special 1980 Fairmont was one of my favorites when I was a kid. It looked like a fast version of what I could see everyday. As I got older I gravitated to the less racy exotics. Most of which were Matchbox if I’m recalling correctly. AMG Mercedes, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Porsches, exactly what 30year old me would be driving 🙂
As someone who just bought a ’79 Fairmont I’m now on the hunt for one of these.
Saw a bunch on eBay! They weren’t terribly expensive either. You should replicate the paint job!
Same. As a kid I wasn’t a fan of Hot Wheels because of the exaggerated proportions, oversized rear wheels and garish deco many castings had. I especially couldn’t stand anything with a huge chrome engine with a massive blower sticking out of the hood.
I loved Tomicas and still collect them, but their wheel game is lame, and the cars often look undertired.
The only one from the last 15 years that looked right on the Tomica pizza cutter wheels was the Mitsubishi Mirage.
Agree. If you go to the trouble of accurate scale and proportion, do it completely. My Tomicas date from the late 70s to early 80s and the wheels are too small. They look like donut spares. Otherwise, they’re great. I had Hot Wheels, probably received as presents, but they fell to the bottom of the heap.
Ha, your comment echoes the one I just posted. I also got to travel to Asia a bit as a kid and that cemented my love of Tomicas. I’m going to Japan for the first time next month and one of the things I’m most excited for is going to the Tomica store.
The big question from the back-when versions is: do you remember the big countertop display cases, often rotating, for them? With the rows of the same model behind the outer facing one?
One of my favorites of all time, right up there with the same era motor-driven Timex watch displays.
Oh yeah, I remember those!
Both the rotating case and timex watch display you mention were on display at the flagship of our local department store chain (Hess’s) in Allentown, PA. They also had a giant motorized swiss army watch display where the blades would go in and out of an oversized casing. I really miss that store. My grandfather was VP of the store under the son of one of the founders, and everyone in my family (besides me) worked there at one time or another, so the connection is very deep.
Ooh that Swiss Army Knife is another display classic! Our internet era has really killed interest in eye-catching physical advertising.
A vintage toy store near my house has a couple of these in use.
Man… I was not expecting that memory to come back today…
There was a store in the town that I grew up in that I loved. It was a sporting goods store, but I loved it because they had a large display case of Matchbox cars. I didn’t always come home with one, but I always made sure to run in and look whether my Mother wanted to or not. Curiously, none of the cars were actually in boxes, so I didn’t learn where the name of the cars came from until decades later. It’s been probably four decades since I thought of that store. Looking at google maps, it a real estate business now.
All these years later, adult me keeps looking around for some form of an NC Miata in the form that I loved as a kid. One of these days I’ll find the right one.
Ooh, I had that old-school Lesney-made BP Exploration 6-wheeler when I was a kid. Memories!
I found the Matchbox Superfast silver & black 1970 El Camino in a box last summer to add to my 1:64 die cast El Camino collection.
It’s awesome!
https://carolinasdiecast.com/products/matchbox-superfast-america-12-1970-el-camino-silver?srsltid=AfmBOoqN7P3w6p30-PeLA_cG4tHyYvlZnFSZqC6KN_lgBprwE4tJUo0R
I find a lot of 1:64 cars at decent prices at antique shops or at “man-tiques” style vintage toy shops.
One thing that always stood out about Matchbox & Hot Wheels was how the Matchbox models almost always had the scale (1:53, 1:59, 1:65, etc) on the bottom (a fun way to determine how various models compared in size IRL as seeing how the diecast models had to fit within the same and particular parameters) whereas Hot Wheels models, even the ones based on real-life cars rather than fantasy cars, almost never had the scale on the bottom.
Also, generally speaking, Matchbox would be faster than Hot Wheels on my Hot Wheels tracks; I had the launching pad (not sure what it was called, as Santa Claus never included the packaging on Xmas morning) which would release two cars simultaneously at the top of the tracks and the assembly with the checkered flag that would fall down in the lane of the car that reached finish line first which is how I knew Matchbox to be consistently faster even in close finishes.
Also I had a battery-powered accelerator with spinning rubber foam wheels that would give cars a boost when they went through the “house” (again, dunno what it was called thanks to Santa not including the packaging) which was fun because it was possible to set up a circuit where a car could keep going around and around for a good few minutes; the best model was a neighbor’s Matchbox baywindow VW camper which kept going around continuously without stopping for like an hour or so until the batteries petered out.
So, as much as I liked Hot Wheels including even the fantasy models (heck, I even had a Deora when it *first* came out!!), I always preferred Matchbox. Heartily bummed that so many of my Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars disappeared when I went away to college and moved out of the house (which is why I always made it a rule to *always* ask my kids about any of their childhood stuff now that my kids have grown up and moved out.)
Call me a perfectionist, but I sometimes kinda wish Matchbox went with a single scale for all its cars, so they’d be proportional to each other. For instance, it irritates me a little that my MGB-GT is the same size as my Chevelle SS.
Oh, yeah, I know quite well what you mean. As a kid I figured it was because it was cheaper and easier to just make the cars all the same size, i.e. with being able to put the wheels in the same spots on the factory machines regardless of what models the diecast models were. Still, I did wish for being able to readily discern the differences in size & proportions between various cars…
I do remember some old companies that made their models rigorously in the same scale but they were not at all common where I grew up. IIRC, Majorette of France and Siku of Germany, in the past before they were bought out and outsourced, sometimes would indeed adhere to the same scale. And I do know some upscale (heh) manufacturers do likewise. I think Norev, Tomica, Schuco, and Solido may be among those that do so.
When my kids were youngsters, in the 2000s and early 10s, we found several excellent resources for quality and still affordable diecast models online, some of them based in Europe where we had to make sure to place our orders before or after August because so many Europeans would go on vacation for the month of August, lol. A few years back I checked on those websites only to find that either the proprietors had retired or the companies had been bought out and dissolved, alas.
However, at least there’s eBay where my kids & I have had some luck with finding quality diecast models at affordable prices…
The variable scale is why I stopped collecting them when I was a kid.
I always felt the same way but even as a kid I understood they had package size limitations.
The very first toy car I got was a Tomica Hino school bus and it’s about the same length as a Tomica Toyota Celica I have.
The boxes are also easier to store than Hot Wheel’s bubble packaging.
Most of mine are gone though, The tabs would break eventually from all the opening and closing.
I was always more of a Matchbox guy than a Hot Wheels guy. When I was a kid in the 80’s, Mattel/Hot Wheels was going through a hard time. The axles would bend if you looked at them funny, and the car would ride on these stupid little humps cast into the chassis so that the car wouldn’t completely collapse. Why it was more cost effective to cast those humps in, instead of use a better axle/suspension I will never understand.
Matchbox, on the other hand, had a beautiful sproingy suspension that was so much fun to play with, and were tough as nails. This was back before Mattel owned both brands.
I agree Mattel has done a good job giving Matchbox their own identity. Hot Wheels makes the wild and crazy things, where Matchbox lives in a much more realistic realm. As such, they are still my preference. Of course, I’ve always had LOTS from both brands. I couldn’t tell you how many diecasts I have today, but it’s at least a thousand and could certainly be a lot more.
Yes, my brother and I were Matchbox kids, and we were disappointed when we got Hot Wheels (this is in the 70’s) and the wheels would eventually exhibit positive camber. But at least the wheels wouldn’t break on HW, versus the pre-Superfast Matchboxes whose tires would break in half.
I have a hard time finding Matchboxes tho; so much easier to buy Hot Wheels.
The Matchbox section is always way smaller than the Hot Wheels section these days.
If any of y’all find a yellow B15 Nissan Sentra, especially a SE-R, especially especially a Spec-V, please scoop it for me and I will gladly buy it from you with a healthy finder’s fee.
The little white boxes are part of what I love about Takara Tomy cars too.
Mk1 Golf Plz!
Matchbox cars from Ben Franklin! Buying those was a thing I was still able to do until recently as the town I live in had one of the last remaining Ben Franklins in the state. What a great place – it had more variety and much better customer service than the two Dollar Generals that have since replaced it. They also ran some really great specials around Christmas and had a deal where if you called and told them what grade your kid was going into, they’d have all of the school-required supplies waiting in a sack for you when you arrived.
I have the 914, the Fiat, and several versions of that ’59 Dodge up there. They always seem to get me with their five packs having the “only available color” of some car I have to have sitting on my desk that day. The latest was this ’75 Eldorado. Earlier examples have included a Citroen DS and Mercedes 300TD. There are usually at least one or two others that my daughter takes for her collection, and anything else goes to one of my renters’ kid.
When I was a kid I gravitated towards Hot Wheels slightly more, but the gold standard, at least when I could find them, were the Tomicas – the actual suspension was great and the proportions always seemed dead on. I still have their ’76 Cadillac ambulance and ’78 Jaguar XJS in my collection from those days.
I also have the 1978 Jaguar XJS. Additional advantage of the Tomicas is they showed the actual undercarriage.
I had the freeway gas tanker as a kid. For some strange reason, that was my favorite car. And, I was always a fan of Matchbox more than Hot Wheels.
Gay Gasp!! I want that sweet sweet Volvo! <send/receive, send/receive, send/receive>
Time for some Carl Perkins, then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTA8m_luor4
I hate the Beatles mostly. But I’ve got a favorite Beatles song. And it’s the cover of this Carl Perkins song.
Now I need to find one of those RX 500s. Thanks, dammit.
“Powered by ROTARY”!!!
Sweeeet! I was always a Matchbox guy, though I didn’t turn my nose up at Hot Wheels. I still prefer the cardboard boxes to plastic bubble packs.
I also preferred the stock, older cars to the weird hot rods and new stuff. I was not a normal child, but an Autopian hatchling.
Will watch my mailbox. Here’s hoping.
I was always a Hot Wheels kid, but never turned down a cool Matchbox, or Corgi, or Burago, or Tomica. As a child of the 1980’s (born in ’75), I, too, preferred the everyday cars that were miniaturized instead of the wacky concepts that I saw and thought to myself, “There’s no way Chevy can make that!” LOL. Perhaps I was an Autopian in the making as well….