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Matchbox, maker of small toy cars, is bringing back one of its most important models. It is not a car, but a small horse-drawn coach, and its success led to the creation of Matchbox toy cars. And it was Matchbox cars that in turn inspired their only competitor, Hot Wheels.
Both brands are now owned by Mattel, but it all goes back to a small horse-decorated carriage that was sold as a memento of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. As Matchbox celebrates its 70th anniversary, it presents a new, more detailed and accurate version for the coronation of its son, King Charles III.
In 1952, the year Elizabeth’s father, King George VI, died, two men ran a metal toy shop featuring miniature road construction equipment and trucks in a town in the northern east london They had not been very successful and the business was struggling as it dealt with restrictions on the use of metal during the Korean War.
The death of the king, the end of the war and the upcoming coronation of a new monarch created a perfect opportunity for the small business, called Lesney Products & Company Limited. Lesney would soon become famous as a maker of Matchbox cars. But first, the two owners of the company at the time, Jack Odell and Leslie Smith, brought out a toy design that they had never put into production.
It was a model of the ornate Gold State Coach. The royal carriage, built in 1762, had been used at the coronations of all monarchs since King George IV in 1821. The original idea had been to make the toy with a miniature King George VI inside but, as the king was dead, they cut him out of the metal molds. (His lower legs remained and are visible in early toys.)
The Lesney model had eight painted metal horses and four riders at the head of a coach that was painted or plated in gold or silver, according to the book Matchbox Toys by Nick Jones. That toy was a big hit, so Lesney produced a smaller version, a few inches long.
The little trainer was even more successful and the company sold over a million of them.
To make the new version, Matchbox didn’t just go back and copy the toy from 70 years ago. Instead, Matchbox lead designer Julian Payne went to the Royal Mews, where the actual carriages are kept, to extensively photograph the actual carriage. These photos were then used to create the new model. They allowed the designers to create a more accurate version that even corrects some mistakes in the original.
“We are doing so much [decoration]as many details as we can,” Payne said.
The new coach will be built like modern Matchbox cars, in die-cast metal with clear plastic windows and plastic seat cushions inside. The original only had open windows. (Another version of the coach, made in the 1990s, had black windows.) The shape of the new coach also looks more like the actual coach, with a body that moves further back from the front wheels than in the original toy.
The painted side panels are recreated with printed designs. Three cherubs representing England, Scotland and Ireland are visible on the roof. in the original they were represented by a simple grooved stick. Sculptural figures including mermen, mythical sea gods, are depicted in more detail on the front and back.
The horses from the original toys were copied for this version using detailed 3D scans. The new wagon will be in the traditional 1/64 scale used for Matchbox cars. It will have rolling wheels and a rotating front axle, just like the real coach. Tiny figures of King Charles and Queen Camilla sit inside, visible through the windows.
The new coaches can be ordered online from the evening of April 25 through May 22 at $60 each. They will be produced only in the number ordered, according to Mattel.
Seventy years ago, those original toy carriages brought in a lot of cash, so Lesney embarked on the next idea. At the time, Odell’s daughter wanted a toy small enough to take to school, but according to Payne, the school had a rule that they could only bring toys small enough to fit in a box of matches With the company’s new capabilities in producing very small toys, the Matchbox line of toy cars and trucks was born.
One of the most important features of these small vehicles was the price. They were cheap enough for kids to easily buy and play with, not a major investment.
“You could roll them,” Payne said. “They weren’t pieces you had to display behind a closet.”
Decades later, Elliot Handler, one of Mattel’s founders, noticed his son playing with Matchbox cars. Mattel had been looking for a toy that would appeal to boys just as Barbie, that company’s first big hit, appealed to girls. Instead of realistically replicating actual production cars like Matchbox did, Hot Wheels drew inspiration from the custom car culture of Southern California where Mattel was based. Hot Wheels cars had garish paint jobs, oversized wheels, impossibly huge (relatively speaking) plastic engines, and only occasionally looked like cars you might see on the street. Hot Wheels also offered their famous orange plastic tracks for cars to fall on in miniature races.
After the Matchbox brand went through a few owners, it also ended up being part of Mattel in 1997. The former competitors are now owned by the same corporation, and Matchbox has more or less returned to its roots by concentrating – become more realistic. cars and trucks, while Hot Wheels mostly offers the flashiest custom jobs.
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