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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Honey, I shrank the car!

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Remember when enjoying life seemed to be the crest of childhood?  It was a guiltless journey of wonder and discovery—constantly revisitable, unlike those brief vogues for Captain Barbell and He-Man merchandise that took off like a skyrocket and floundered just as fast.

HOT WHEELS. Matchbox and come-from-behind Hot Wheels have their share of contribution to keep kids cherishing their first toy car until he is old enough to own his first honest to goodness real car.  It is not surprising then that their charm would never fail to prompt a grown-up man to retro age once he opens a mothballed cabinet and feel with his fingertips the reminders of his happy childhood.  We can certainly not censure the man for looking 60 going on 10 again. 

History has a way of repeating itself, spiced with stories told by grandfathers and Dads, dense with details that gratify children at each retelling.  Today’s kids between 4 years old and their prom date in high school are in a millennium where they are growing up with electronic gadgets glued to their twitchy-fingered hands.  There was a time, in the not so distant past, however, when kids of that generation went all hopped up about toy cars—the kind of look-at-me toy cars where at tony toy stores and thrift shops the stuff roared by leaps and bounds out the doors.  And if you think Matchbox toy cars were so yesterday, think again.  These mini wonders have been around in a long, long while.

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In 1947 English friends Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith established the Lesney Products foundry, then enlisted another friend, Jack Odell, an engineer and toolmaker, into the team.  They made all sorts of toys from the late 1940s to the early ‘50s.  In 1953 at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, Lesney Products made a scaled down model of the Queen’s coach to the size that would fit in a matchbox.  And a legend was born!  Soon thereafter the trio produced models of Land Rover and Daimler Ambulance castings in bigger scale to perk up their play value.  Succeeding models were mostly commercial and construction vehicles to bolster up Britain’s spirits after its World War II disablement.  In 1954 the foundry introduced its first passenger car, an MG TD #19. Later on they introduced toy cars modelled from other countries.  European kids were introduced to small-scale American cars such as a 1950 Ford Station Wagon, a 1959 Impala, a ’58 Cadillac, a ’59 Chevrolet, a ’60 Pontiac Bonneville, Mustang Fastback, Lincoln Continental, and Mercury Cougar. And their reaction?  Everywhere the response was predictable: the same amazement, an undifferent delight.

There were other companies that tailgated Matchbox’s success but while other companies fabricated unrefined versions of cars common at the time, Matchbox models adhered faithfully to the true details they were cast after.  

Photos by Diana B. Noche

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