Sunday, November 11, 2018

#913 MATCHBOX - F1 RACER (Nr. 74) (1984)


Matchbox is another brand that has not had (historically) many F1s in its 3 inches series compared to other types of cars. In the regular wheels era, there were just a few (I recall just 3). In the Superfast era, there were also very few (F1 Racing Car and Team Matchbox, any other?). Within this series, in the Macau years this F1 Racer (Nr. 74) is the only one that comes to my mind right now.


The original model was painted red in the Ferrari colours and RN3. To my knowledge Ferrari never carried this number around 1984, so the decoration might be not very accurate. The cast itself is also not very accurate, it looks a bit too high and "thick", which some people would define as "slightly toonified".

The second version is the yellow one, I think it does not match any racing team of the mid-80s so the decoration might be inspired from other competition like the Indy.


There was a colour changing version, that I presented in another entry not so long time ago.

After these three, there were other decorations that I do not own. While the models shown in this entry are made in Macau, these ones I mention now are marked Thailand.

Other variants include a blue/red one, a white/blue one, a colour changer completely in red (not the one shown in the previous entry), plus many promotional versions with eye-catching colours. There was even a "My first Matchbox" version in white, with some bits of colours over its body.

Some of these models have base plates that were modified/renamed to "Indy Racer" instead of "F1 Racer", and there are a lot of alternate decorations for the American market based on supposedly real Indy cars, all of them quite flashy and very colourful decorations. I do not have any of these, but I will consider writing another entry if I ever got any.


I recommend, as always, visiting Falkensteiner's web for watching all decorations and variants of every Matchbox car.

As the model was discontinued because the car was already looking a bit outdated, a new cast was designed with a model from the early to mid 90s. F1 (or Indy) racers was made available, and so it remained until 1995.

I am devoting many entries to F1s lately... sorry if you find this topic boring.


FACTS and FIGURES:
  • Name: F1 RACER
  • Scale: Around 1:64
  • Year: 1984
  • Company: Matchbox (United Kingdom)
  • Size: approx. 7 cm

5 comments:

  1. I am not sure, but Hot wheels was more popular or was Matchbox the top selling one?
    I only had BBurago ones and those cheap diecasts (on plastic trays) from markets.

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    1. Hi! Thanks for the comment!
      I would say hot wheels is far more popular in the USA, while Matchbox is more popular in Europe. In other markets there are other brands that sell better (for example Tomica in Japan, Majorette in France...), but in general, that would be quite an accurate rule.
      The cheap cars in plastic trays arrived quite late, first in the early nineties.

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    2. I know the Tomica ones (especially ChoroQ) as I collect mostly Japanese toys and model kits (console games too).
      I was born in the 88' in Poland so it was hard to get the Western toys here back at those times

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  2. Ik heb de matchbox f1 set uit 1984 compleet met 2 f1 auto,s en een iveco turbo trekker met motorhome oplegger. Alles van Ferrari.

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    1. Hi, Jordi, thanks for the comment! If I understand your message correctly, you are talking about the bigger truck motorhome. I have seen it a few times, and I could even buy it once, but it was so big, I thought it would take too much space. It is a great toy, so congratulations.
      Regards,
      Juan

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