#623 MATCHBOX – LOTUS EUROPA and BMC 1800 PININFARINA (1969)

Two cars released in 1969. Amazing design for that year! Both came with Superfast wheels. Their most common colours are listed below, but of course, they can be found in other rare combinations, prototypes and international versions.

N°5d Lotus Europa (available 1969-1974)
1969-1970: Blue
1971-1974: Pink

N°56c BMC 1800 Pininfarina (available 1969-1974)
1969-1970: Golden
1971-1973: Orange

UPDATE (JAN/2017): I recently found two Lotus Europa in better condition than the two above, so I insert more pictures here.

Different tow-slots

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: LOTUS EUROPA (Nr.5d) and BMC 1800 PININFARINA (Nr.56c)
• Scale: 1:64 (approx.)
• Year: 1969
• Company: Matchbox (Great Britain)
• Size: approx. 3’’ or 7 cm

#622 NACORAL / INTERCARS - BIZZARRINI "MANTA" (Ref. 308) (1972)

Another great model by Nacoral of Zaragoza, Spain.

This cast is a beautifully detailed Bizzarrini "Manta" in 1:43 scale. The car is a relatively rare car designed by Italdesign Giugiaro in 1968/69, I did not even know this car existed, and now, watching photos of the car I am amazed by its design. The car was also reproduced in 1:64 scale by Corgi Toys (in the Corgi Juniors series) and also by Mercury. Nacoral and Mercury models are based on the same cast. Recently it has been made by other manufacturers.

Only one unit of the car was manufactured for a race, and the model is now in private hands.

FACTS AND FIGURES: 

• Name: BIZZARRINI "MANTA" (Ref. 308)  
• Scale: 1:43  
• Year: 1972  
• Company: Nacoral/ Intercars (Spain)  
• Size: approx. 9 cm

#621 MASTERS UNIVERSE - PRINCE ADAM AND KING RANDOR (1984 and 1987)

The Masters of the Universe adventures are mostly located in Eternia, a planet ruled by King Randor and Queen Marlena. Their son Adam is their only descendant, and he is, of course, He-Man´s alter ego.

The figure of Prince Adam was released in the third wave (1984) while the figure of King Randor was released much later, in 1987 within the 6th wave. Why, I don't know. King Randor appears in many episodes of the Filmation series, but he is not very often into action, so maybe Mattel thought it may not sell very well.

King Randor wears a red top an orange trousers, probably the toy designers took the colours from the TV series. The figure is rare not only because it belongs to the last series in most parts of the world, but also because it came with a blue cloak, that is also quite difficult to find original. Note the golden attachment around the neck of the figure. Other accesories were a spear, an armour (2 parts) and the crown, that was not intended to be removed, but it actually could be removed. Since the head is painted, the figure can be often found with a paint chip in the nose, and this should be controlled when purchased. Golden paint (belt, armour...) is also rather fragile and tend to disappear if the figure was played. Something in sweat or maybe the fat produced by human skin makes this paint disappear. It is not something that happens to MotU only, it is also common to Hasbro's WWF, and probably to other toylines too.

Prince Adam reuses the complete cast of He-Man, and also his Power Sword, everything recoloured to look very different. Unlike He-Man, who is almost naked, Prince Adam wears a white t-shirt with long sleeves, light purple trousers and purple boots and shorts. In top of that a dark red velvet jacket and a black belt. His only accesory was a pink sword. Very interesting is his belt. It is made of a black elastic strip and a yellow button on the front. This yellow button makes the belt to be one of the most difficult accesories in the whole collection. If the belt is present, it is almost always missing the button.

I present in this entry the two figures, but I also compare different Adam figures I own from different CoOs (Countries of Origin).

Left up: Malaysia soft head, Right Up: Malaysia Hard Head, 

Down left: Taiwan, Down right: Spain

Left up: Taiwan , Right Up: Spain, 

Left down: Malaysia soft head, Right Down: Malaysia Hard Head

The version I own since I was a kid is made in Spain, and is the one with the darker hands. One thumb is broken, I wish I can find and glue it again.

The version which I used to take the pictures, and the only one with the yellow button in the belt is Made in Taiwan. The other two are Made in Malaysia, but one is soft head and the other one is hard head.

Jacket comparison Left: Malaysia soft head, Right: Spain

Jacket comparison: Left: Malaysia soft head, Center: Spain, Right: Malaysia hard head

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: PRINCE ADAM (Ref. 7353) AND KING RANDOR (Ref. 3068)
• Toy Line: Masters of the Universe (Waves 3 and 6)
• Year: 1984 and 1987
• Company: Mattel (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: Around 14 cm

#620 MAJORETTE - MOTO NEIGE (N° 249) (1970)

This curious vehicle was first released in 1970, and it seems to be a nice toy for winter days. It was available until 1976, which is more or less the average life of a Majorette model.

Variant: yellow and clear windshield

The Moto Neige is unfortunately a very fragile model. First because of the rubber caterpillar, second because of the handlebars and small windshield, third because of the plastic front skis, and fouth because the chromed parts. Most used models are in bad condition.

As many models from the early years, the Moto Neige was made in several colours, and decals were applied randomly, so the difficult task here is to find two identical snowmobiles.

In my case, I own a few red models and a yellow one. In the pictures, I tried to capture the different decals applied.

Even rarer is the small trailer which was only available in the series 300 (the snowmobile was available without the trailer in the 200 series). It adds a nice component to the game, and is also a fragile part because of the plastic, chromed skis. This part has no decals applied.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: MOTO NEIGE (Nr. 249)
• Scale: 1:50
• Year: 1970 (to 1976)
• Company: Majorette (France)
• Size: approx. 10 cm

#619 STAR - TECHNIK-QUARTETT - EASY RIDER (Nr. 3246) (Around 1983)

There are a few quartetts with the name "Easy Rider" by different manufacturers, and this one is among the rarest ones. I have found just one reference of "Star", the card manufacturer, but this reference does not include any relevant information about the origin of this brand.

It seems to be a rare deck, and Star a very small manufacturer, or maybe a "white brand" for another larger Company. I think it is actually the second: this deck was probably made by Piatnik from Vienna, because it is almost identical to the homonimous Piatnik deck, reference 4222 from 1977. Only 8 cards are different. Earlier versions of this Piatnik deck have more differences, so my guess is that the Star quartett must be slightly newer than the Piatnik 4222.

Sorry that I cannot say anything else about this deck, if you know something about it, please don´t hesitate to leave a comment to this entry. Thanks.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: TECHNIK-QUARTETT - EASY RIDER (Nr. 3246)
• Year: Around 1983
• Company: Star (Probably Austria?)

#618 SCALEXTRIC - LANCIA LC2 “TOTIP” and PORSCHE 956 “SKOOL” (Ref. C016 and C018) (1985)

Scalextric owners have always taken competition very seriously. Especially in the old days, many people used to trick their cars to make them faster and more estable: by modifying the motor, change the axles length, the width of tyres or making the car lighter and lowering the gravity center. As a "scar" of these practices, there are many old cars in which the body of the car over the wheels has been modified to allow bigger wheels than in the original model.

Slot cars manufacturers never payed attention to this fact, or at least the most popular ones. Scalextric Spain (at the time controlled by Exin) noticed this and in the early 80s (from 1982 on), they released a line of cars designed especially for the competition. I got two one christmas (they were among the first cars I ever got/bought) and they were really amazing. Faster like hell (mostly compared to the ordinary models), never got out of the track, but ugly... this is something we understand, since the normal inyected plastic car bodys have been replaced by a very thing and fragile flexible plastic, with almost no weight. Fortunately these cars had very few "accidents" thanks to their powerful magnet. Otherwise, they would be very difficult to find in good conditions nowadays.

Another weak point of these models is that the plastic (if originally white) yellows rather remarkably.
Among the models released by Scalextric I got the least ugly models: a Ferrari F1 and a McLaren F1. There were also several Sport Prototypes (like these two) and several rally cars (among them a Peugeot and a Mercedes).

To increase the feeling of having a great piece of machinery, each car was sold with 2 extra axles to customize the car and a small wrench. All cars were of course equipped with soft, wide slicks and aluminium rims.

The SRS series was updated a few years later by the SRS2 series (starting in 1992 or maybe a bit earlier, since some models with the fragile body have also been spotted in blue SRS2 boxes), in which the bodies of the cars were adapted to look like ordinary models, and the chassis was also modified and, I guess, improved in some way. We will maybe talk about the SRS2 some other time.

FACTS AND FIGURES

• Name: LANCIA LC2 “TOTIP” and PORSCHE 956 “SKOOL” (Ref. C016 and C018)
• Scale: 1:32
• Year: 1985
• Company: Scalextric Exin (Spain)
• Size: approx. 15 cm