Me n' Matchbox

I’m going to go off on a little tangent here. There is a tiny bit of painting involved, but blink and you might miss it. If you’ve spent any great amount of time in my blog – and I certainly hope you have – you’ll probably have worked out that trams and buses, trains and London are amongst my list of loves. When I was a kid, probably up until when I left primary school, I was very fond of toy cars as well.

There were 4 main manufacturers in the early/mid 70s. There were the Brits – Dinky, Corgi and Matchbox, then the US giant that was going to topple them all – Hot Wheels. Dinky were great because they made fantastic models based on Gerry Anderson series like Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet. Corgi also did some very cool Film/TV tie ins – the James Bond Aston Martin DB5 – the 1960s Batmobile, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to name but 3. However these were all larger models – Christmas or birthday presents, not to be purchased with pocket money.

Up to 1968, Matchbox – by Lesney – were the most successful die cast car manufacturers in the world. Since 1953Matchbox largely produced faithful models of a wide range of mostly UK motor vehicles. The range expanded until it comprised of 75 models, and old models would be discontinued, and replaced by different new models. In 1968, though, the US toy giant Mattel launched Hot Wheels. A chap called Elliot Handler came up with the idea after playing with Matchbox cars with his son. He had a vision of a way that the British market leader could be toppled, although apparently his wife Ruth was sceptical. She did actually know a thing or two about toys, having created the Barbie doll over a decade earlier, still, I digress.

The real key to Hot Wheels’ success was in putting the emphasis away from realism, to exaggerated or invented designs, with very wild and colourful paint jobs, and wide tyres which made them perfect for racing on polyurethane tracks, which they also marketed.

By 1971, most if not all of the 75 Matchbox models now came with what they called ‘superfast’ wheels in response to Hot Wheels. Also, the range began to include exaggerated and even generic designs, clearly inspired by the Hot Wheels ethic. Corgis responded too with their ‘whizzwheels’. Of the three, Matchbox were always my favourite. The Corgi cars I had all had plastic baseplates, and felt insubstantial compared with a Matchbox car. I have a brother a year older than me, and a brother a year younger. It was my younger brother who received a Hot Wheels track with a couple of cars in about 1970, and I thought they were rather insubstantial too, although not as much as Corgi. Their axles bent too easily for my liking.

It wasn’t only that. With Christmas money one year in the early 70s I bought a Corgi Rockets polyurethane race track. As I recall, it came with the Saint’s Volvo car, which had a base with the axles and wheels which you could remove with a key and put onto another car. Why you would want to, I have no idea. Compared with my best Matchbox cars, its performance on the track was still rubbish.

The track came with a rather weedy plastic clamp and starter which never worked brilliantly and was soon broken. However I improvised a clamp and starter from my Meccano set. For an encore, I also built a contraption which turned my basic track into a loop the loop. This impressed my father no end. He seemed totally unimpressed when I’d constructed all of the models in the book which came with the set, but when I went off piste, as it were, he was all over it. So, of all my cars, no Corgi ever came close to completing it, and the only cars to make it were the Matchbox Lamborghini Countach, which did it once, and the Matchbox Maserati Bora, which did it every time. Which put it high in my affections, for sure. However, my favourite of all was Blue Shark. It was no great shakes on the loop, but I loved that car, and even today, if you showed me a photograph of number 61 Blue Shark my heart would quicken in response. Ahh.

So, to cut to the chase, I loved my toy cars, and Matchbox were my favourite, I’m sure you got that. Right, well, I’ve been sitting at my desk at home an awful lot over the last twelve months, and a random thought occurred to me looking at the shelves in front of my desk, crammed with books and various what have you's, and also my painting of a Swansea tram, which has never been for sale. It suddenly occurred to me – wouldn’t it be nice to have a model of a London tram? A thought which was swiftly followed by – I wonder if Matchbox ever made a London tram? So, I looked on ebay, and what I found was described as a ‘Matchbox style London Tram’ It looked pretty clean, in pretty good condition, and pretty damn cheap. So I bought it.

Thing is, though, an act like that, for a lot of us, is only the first link in the chain. My tram had a banner advertisement for Typhoo Tea. A little research revealed that Matchbox had made a tram – looking similar, but advertising the News of the World. This was one of the first set of Matchbox’s Models of Yesteryear, which began in 1956. As the name suggests this was a range of models outside of the 1-75 series, consisting of models of vehicles from, well, from yesteryear. Hence the name. This model was produced from 1956 to 1963. I found quite a load of them on ebay, and this one was very reasonable. So I bought it.

Being a nerd is not a fairweather thing. You have to put the hours in. So I did a little research, and found that although it has nothing marking it as Matchbox, the Typhoo tram was produced in 1985, as a one off promotional for TyPhoo tea, who were celebrating their 80^th birthday. If you look in the photo, the two models do look extremely similar. Despite there being 20 years between them, the metal bodies, the main part of the tram, could have been made by the same mould, or tools, or however they make them. There’s no plastic on the original (News of the World) tram that I’ve been able to find. Even the wheels are metal. With the 1985 tram, the baseplate is plastic, and a slightly different shape from the metal plate on the original, which says ‘Made in England’ as opposed to ‘Made in Hong Kong’ on the plastic one. The plastic wheels on this one don’t work as well as the metal wheels on the original. The roof of the TyPhoo tram is also made of plastic, and although it is very similar to the original, some of the details on it have slightly different proportions to the original. The only decals on the Typhoo tram are the side banners, while there are other decals on the original, a couple of which you can see in the photograph.

They look rather a treat on my shelves. So much so that I thought to myself – hmm, I wonder if they do any nice old London buses too? So when I saw this pair on ebay (other auction sites must be available although I’ve never heard of them) going for a snip. I put in a speculative maiden bid, and won.

Now, I will come clean and admit that I thought I was buying Type B buses – I’ll say more about that later. However when they arrived, something was bugging me. Then I realised what it was. The Type B London Bus only has 4 windows along the side. These buses are definitely longer. The writing on the base plate is very small, but a little bit of research revealed that these are in fact Type S Buses. Not as well known as the earlier Type B, the Type S was used from 1920, being bigger and having more capacity than the type B which dated back to before the First World War. They too were part of the Matchbox Models of Yesteryear series. The Schweppes version is slightly older and was produced for a couple of years from 1982. For a while after that it came in a different, non LT livery, advertising Haig Whiskey, then in 1988 back to London livery, advertising Rice Krispies. Production ceased the following year. These are very nice models. They’re in very good condition, and look as if they’ve never been played with since they were removed from the box. (Which is a little bit sad, mind you). The scale is bigger than the typical matchbox models. They’re nicely detailed, but the top deck seems to be completely made of plastic, which is a little bit of a shame.

Buy one or two trams and buses, and you’ve got one or two. Buy 4, and you’ve got a collection starting. And the problem with that was, that once I’d researched the London tram and bus models that I had, I learned about London tram and bus models that I hadn’t. I mentioned the Type B Bus earlier. Another toy brand that I held as much love for as Matchbox was Airfix, and Airfix made a model kit of a London Type B Bus, which I never bought, but used to ogle in the Airfix catalogue. So it’s always been a little iconic to me – I even painted a watercolour of one once.

Research revealed that a B Type bus had also been an original Model of Yesteryear. A search on eBay brought up this: -

The appeal of this particular lot was that the B type itself was in basically sound condition, although missing its driver. The cosmetic condition wasn’t brilliant, but nothing that I couldn’t tackle. More than that, though, it also came with a late 1960s Matchbox Routemaster. Ropey condition mind you, but nonetheless, it’s another iconic London bus for the collection, which was essentially a free gift since it was the Type B I was buying. I did as little repainting work as I could, having matched the very dark red that Matchbox used for this model. Then I bought a set of decals from the web – more expensive than both buses, but since I’d paid very little for them this wasn’t a bad deal. I applied the decals, and this was the result: -

I am stupidly, ridiculously pleased at the way this has turned out. It doesn’t look mint – I left a few chips in the paint, but I do think that it’s come up well, and I think it’s a lovely wee thing. As for the driver and steering wheel – well, we’ll see.

I haven’t touched the Routemaster yet. As it is, on the shelves, turned round so that the side with the remaining decal shows it doesn’t look too desperately bad. In the future though it will really need a respray and a new set of decals. Sadly, a previous owner has applied the front and much of the sides with a coat of matte red, which isn’t even a match for the tone of the original. In the mid 60s this Routemaster was number 5 out of 75. As for the bus itself, well to me, the Routemaster will always be The London Bus. Throughout my childhood, and for long after I left London the mighty 207 Routemasters plied the route between Uxbridge and Shepherd’s Bush Green, a staggeringly long journey which took about 3 weeks if memory serves me correctly. Then there was the 65 from Ealing Broadway to Chessington Zoo (before it became the World of Adventures).

However an earlier version of this came out in 1954, just one year after the first 4 Matchbox cars.

As I said, this tiny model was first made in the second year of Matchbox cars – and this one, I am sure, would actually fit into a standard size matchbox. It’s simply called No. 5 – London Bus – and that massive 5 on the front leaves you in no doubt what number model this is. It’s not clear whether this is meant to represent a specific bus or if it is just a generic red double decker. 1954 was the first year that the Routemaster prototype was unveiled. The front, in particular the radiator grille looks to me more reminiscent of an RT – reminiscent of the Routemaster but a little older. RT’s were still running on some routes in Ealing when I was a kid in the 70s.

This is a tiny model – you can see that in the comparison photos with the Routemaster and the Trolleybus. It’s also my most battered model – but I will in the fulness of time try a little gentle sympathetic restoration. It’s a bit basic, but it gets my respect for being a good, honest little thing, and the first bus ever produced in the Matchbox range.

I firmly believe that most of the pleasure in collecting, and pretty much all of the pain, comes from completism. The desire to have a complete set of, well, whatever it is you’re collecting. In my case, it’s Matchbox London Buses and trams. So this was why I bought another Models of Yesteryear from the l980s and this one is a 1931 Trolleybus.

At the end of the 20s, the decision was made to replace London's trams with trolleybuses. And to be fair, it only took a little over 30 years before the last London Tram trundled off into the sunset. This was the first London trolleybus, which made its debut in 1931. It was nicknamed the 'Diddler', which sounds like something from the pen of 'Carry On film writer Talbot Rothwell. These buses soldiered on until the end of the 1940s. For me, you can really see features of both tram and bus in this one. As a Model, it's on the same scale as the S Type buses I bought earlier, which you can see from the photo.

It's a very nice model indeed - sumptuously packaged considering the time it was made. The only slight drawback is that the window section of the top deck is plastic, as are the poles on top of the bus which connect with the live wires. Everything else is metal. The base plate says that it was manufactured in Macau.

Matchbox did actually make a London Trolleybus which was part of the 1-75 range. This next one came out in 1958 and was produced until 1965, several years after the last trolleybus ran in London. The trolleybuses were phased out a couple of years before I was born, but I clearly remember visiting the London Transport Museum when it was temporarily based in Syon Park before the Covent Garden museum opened. I could not believe the size of the trolleybus – they were monsters with no fewer than 2 rear axles. I’ve drawn a trolleybus in Kaunas, but not painted one yet.

This is a nice old model, but goodness, it's small! In terms of scale, it's one of the smallest bus models I have, which is ironic considering that in real life it is probably the biggest of all of them! even a Routemaster had a smaller capacity than a trolleybus - and despite a number of different models, almost all of the London trolleybuses to come after the Diddlers were pretty much identical. The two photos below give you a comparison. Here's a comparison with one of the smaller bus models that I have, the B Type bus

- and this is a comparison between the Matchbox Routemaster and the Trolleybus

I like this wee trolleybus very much, not least because they were all gone from London's streets by the time I was born in 1964, the last having run in 1962. It's a pretty basic model though - compared with the Routemaster for example, it has no interior, there's no seats on either deck, and no stairs.

Okay, so my original plan was that I was going to collect Matchbox buses and trams up to and including the Routemaster, and then stop. I wasn’t originally planning to buy any more. Famous last words. The completist demon appeared on my shoulder, so I bought this one – Matchbox No. 74 Daimler Bus. This bus was made from 1966 to 1971. For the first couple of years it was in cream and then green livery. However for the last couple of years of production it was also available in London Transport livery. Which is exactly what I saw on ebay going for a song, along with a refuse truck. So here it is.

It's actually a really rather nice model, despite the paintwork being a little faded, and that it has a couple of dings here and there. It does have superfast wheels, and nice plastic interiors. It seems to be on the same scale as my Routemaster which you can see here by way of a comparison.

This is one of my absolute favourite Matchbox London bus models. It’s the Models of Yesteryear London Horse drawn bus.

This one came out in 1959 and ceased production in 1966. They’re not uncommon on eBay, but you get what you pay for. If you want one in decent decorative order, complete with both horses still attached, they’re not as cheap as I’d like. Well, I have to say that I was delighted to get hold of this little beauty – which has either been extremely well looked after, or has been sympathetically restored. Horsepower – real horse power, that is – was really the only game in town in London from George Shillibeer’s first horse drawn omnibus in 1829, for the next 70 years. Efficient electric trams only came along in 1901 in London, and the first motor bus that was at all effective was the B Type which made its debut in 1910. I think this is a really lovely little Models of Yesteryear – considering the size the level of detail is rather wonderful, even down to the decals.

When I was a kid, my favourite buses from Ealing were the Routemasters, used on the 207, 83 and 65 routes. However, two of the routes in Ealing, the E1 and E2, were run with this bus. The Londoner (Daimler Fleetliner) Bus Matchbox 17 . I always pigeonholed them as ‘square buses’ and they never earned the affection that people had for the Routemaster. This model stuck around for a while, with various versions being produced from 1972 – 1981. The buses themselves soldiered on from about 1970 with the last one being withdrawn in 1993.

At first glance it looks very similar to the model which replaced it, the Leyland Titan. However, if you look at the photographs below you can see that there are actually differences in all areas of the model, front, back and sides.

These, together with the older Daimler bus are all of much the same size and make a nice little set together.

The most modern bus in my collection of London buses, trolleybuses and trams is this, the Leyland Titan London Bus Matchbox 17 To be honest, at first glance there really isn’t much difference between this bus and its predecessor, the “Londoner” Fleetline bus. It has to be said, though, that this one really had staying power. With a number of variants in decals etc. there was an MB 17 Leyland Titan London Bus being produced in 1982 to replace the Fleetline bus, and there was still an MB17 London Bus Leyland Titan being produced in 1996, with it finally being discontinued in 1997. Titans ran in London from 1978, but all companies operating any bus services had ceased using them in London by 2009.

As for the model, it seems to be pretty much the same scale as both the Routemaster and the Daimler, and it’s of a similar quality. It has the same level of detail, no perspex in the windows, and the same superfast wheels as the Daimler. The interiors are pretty lovingly detailed, with very nice staircases between decks which you can hardly see, especially in the case of the Daimler.

I have to be honest, when I started I really didn’t realise that Matchbox had made so many London bus and tram models in their time. I’m only interested in collecting the smaller scale models, so I get to rule out Superkings and the like. Even so, I found out that I still need one more, which is :-

Models of Yesteryear 1920 Preston Tram London Transport Livery. This came out in 1988, and was produced for the next couple of years. Frankly, I would have thought that 1920 was too early for a tram to be branded London Transport. Nonetheless, this was the last model of Matchbox London bus, trolleybus or tram that I hadn't acquired yet, and hey, it's a tram! This is based on a tram by the Dick Kerr company of Preston. These came in three types. Open, like this one, meaning that both decks are open at the ends of the tram car. Semi closed - where the top deck is closed at both ends, but the driver's position at both ends is open, and closed.

However, it doesn't quite end with Matchbox. When I was trawling through the net, trying to find out about these models, one name kept cropping up - Lledo. - Funny name - thought I - must be a European manufacturer. Well, no. If you read the name Lledo backwards, you come up with Odell. Jack Odell was the co-founder of Lesney products, and the inventor of the first Matchbox cars. According to my research he retired in 1971, but came back in 1981 when the company ran into financial difficulties. A year later Matchbox was sold, and Odell founded Lledo. Lledo began with a range called Days Gone - clearly echoing Matchbox - Models of Yesteryear. The story goes that Jack Odell bought machinery from the company that had bought Matchbox, and shipped it off to Macau, and then back to England. Well, I don't believe that Matchbox ever produced an AEC Regent, but this is enough a Matchbox off shoot for me to have wanted to buy it. The Regent itself is an interesting, halfway house sort of a bus. It first appeared on London's streets right at the end of the 20s, and you can see the top deck is covered with a roof, but the rear stairway is still outside the body of the bus. As for the model, it's nice - in scale I'd say that it sits between the Matchbox Type B, and the Matchbox Type S. Like the 1931 tram, it's mostly metal, but the top deck cream section containing the windows seems to be plastic.

So I've read, the Lledo business model relied on tying in with promotions for different businesses and products - and each model would come out in a bewildering range of liveries.

Sadly, Lledo just couldn't compete with the increasing competition from the Far East as the 90s progressed, and the company declared bankruptcy in 1999. The name was bought by Corgi. in 2002

No, you’re not suffering from déjà vu. This is the Lledo Models of Days Gone version of the London Horse bus. And at first glance you’d be forgiven for nodding sagely and saying – ah, that must have been made with the dies and tools Mr. Odell bought from Matchbox. But look again. For this model is noticeably bigger than the original Matchbox model. It does very much look like a faithful reproduction, just scaled up in size.

However there are some subtle differences. On the Matchbox, I couldn’t find the slightest scrap of plastic. On this Lledo version, the seats on the top deck are plastic, and the horses – whose legs are in slightly different pose from the original- feel plastic too. While I’m being critical too Lledo were slightly stingy with the decals. Where the Matchbox original has really lovely decals on front, on back and up the stairs, the Lledo has none, just the ones on the side. On the positive side, though, the Lledo model comes with the driver and four additional plastic figures on sprues, which presumably you can take out, paint, and arrange on the bus to your own satisfaction which is a touch I rather like. Also whereas the Matchbox has a front axle which is rigid, the Lledo front axle, connected to the yoke with the horses, does turn slightly in both directions. All in all it’s a nice model, but I think that the Matchbox is better.

Now, this is Lledo's Karrier Trolleybus, which came in a variety of liveries, including London Transport:-

You may well be thinking that it looks pretty similar to their AEC Regent Model. Not as similar as it looks to this one though -

This is the Lledo model of the AEC Renown bus. Until I got hold of both of them, I couldn't help wondering whether Lledo was using the same model for both, with only the electricity poles stuck on the roof for the trolleybus. Well, that's clearly not the case, as you can see from this side by side comparison photo: -

Despite the huge similarities, the cabs and radiators are clearly different. And I did go to the trouble of finding photographs of both vehicles, and they do look very similar. I believe that the cream plastic band of upper deck windows is exactly the same in both models. Their wheel base is exactly the same length. If I show you this photograph, then you can see the rear ends of both models are practically identical, apart from the shape of the rear windows:-

A large part of Lledo's commercial strategy was to provide a very wide range of different liveried modes of the same thing, and aso a wide range of promotional models. So while the Karrier Trolleybus is a regular Days Gone series model, this AEC Renown is a promotional model for the Mars confectionary company. This might be the reason why the London Transport writing on the side looks so modern and out of place, especially compared to the lettering on the side of the trolleybus which looks to be of the correct period.

Let's think about this as well. If we go back to the Karrier Trolleybus, looking on ebay today I found no fewer than 82 different versions of this on sale. There were probably more. There were probably some of the liveried buses which came with different advertisements on them. I only counted the differences for London. Or models in either London Transport or General livery, I counted exactly 20 different version, and that's not including those branded London United. I noticed several different models branded Lledo Collector's club. Blimey, if you were that much of a Lledo collector you'd run out of money soon, trying to collect all the different versions of a model like this one. In case you're wondering, I noticed on the same day 56 different versions of the AEC Renown, including 22 different London Transport/General liveried versions!

This is Lledo’s semi-enclosed Dick Kerr Tram. Dick Kerr style trams were the classic style of tram used in most of Britain’s first generation tram networks right up until the 50s. They came in Closed, semi open, and open forms – this is a semi open since the driver’s cabs are open to the elements. I believe that this is the same type of tram as Matchbox’s 1920 Preston Tram London Livery. It certainly looks very similar to the pictures. Scale wise it's quite a bit bigger than the original Matchbox Models of Yesteryear tram -

- although it is just slightly smaller than the comparable Matchbox Yesteryear Dick Kerr tram, as you can see from this photo: -

Between ourselves, I think I prefer the Lledo Model. The electric pole at the top of the Lledo model pivots, while the pol on top of the Matchbox one is just moulded as part of the roof - like the original News of the World tram model.

Let's compare the semi closed Dick Kerr with this Lledo Open Top Dick Kerr tram:-

I've had a close look, and I think it's possible that the main body of both trams uses the same casting. Dick Kerr & Co were an engineering company based in Preston and Kilmarnock, and the several variations of this tram - open like this one, semi enclosed and fully enclosed were used in tramways throughout the UK.

I mentioned earlier that Lledo were bought out by Corgi, and that as a kid, I thought that Corgi Juniors and Whizzwheels were a poor second best to Matchbox. So, I'll be honest, it was never my intention to add any Corgi London bus or tram to my collection. Then I discovered this:-

This is the Corgi originals model of a London Feltham Tram, and it's absolutely gorgeous. It's by far the biggest bus or tram model that I have, and to give you an idea of the scale, I placed the Models of Yesteryear News of the World alongside it for comparison.

It's extremely detailed, and extremely well made - even the bogies with the wheels swivel independently from each other. The Feltham Tram was introduced in London in 1931, and 100 were operated in London. They were larger, and had greater capacity than other tram models at work in London, seating 64, with room for another 20 standing passengers. Most of them lasted until the end of the tramways in London in 1952. 90 out of 100 were sold to Leeds.

I believe that this model was brought out in 2002. Corgi toys began in 1956. They were successful through the 60s and 70s into the 80s, but then suffered a decline when their parent company, Mettoy, made some bad decisions which left them overstretched and led to the receiver coming in in 1983. A management buy out saw Corgi Toys continue on their site in Fforestfach Swansea (a few miles down the road from where I live). However, they were fighting a losing battle and eventually sold out to Mattel in 1989. Which means that Mattel have, at different times, owned Hot Wheels, Corgi and Matchbox. However, they had sold out to a management group by the time they acquired Matchbox. In 1995, the management buyout saw the creation of Corgi Classics Ltd. And this model was produced in this period. In 2002 the company purchased the Lledo name and models, then in 2008 the company was bought by the Hornby group. Phew.

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Going back to purely Matchbox - I've put together a chronology for the models - not for when they were produced, but for when the originals they were based on were on the streets - any mistakes here are purely my own :-

1) Horse drawn bus - c. 1890