Matchbox/Lesney 57c; Land Rover Fire Truck; Red, 'Kent Fire Brigade' BPW

From time to time I used take my Series 2a Land-Rover (sadly sold on now) to the annual Land-Rover weekend at the Gaydon motor museum. Part of the weekend is always a cavalcade of Land-Rover vehicles from every year of production which travels from the factory at Solihull to the museum at Gaydon in Oxfordshire. One year I was immediately in front of a Land-Rover fire appliance exactly like this one. I was rather taken by it.

The Matchbox version had a very long production life. It was first released in 1966 as a regular wheels version. The paintwork was always red and they have paper stickers on the sides reading 'Kent Fire Brigade'. The regular wheels can be grey or black. In 1970 it was converted to Superfast wheels. There are two variations of the Superfast version where the 'Kent Fire Brigade' stickers are either rectangular or cut around the words.

Black regular wheels versions are very commonly found and are correspondingly priced. Grey regular wheels are hard to find and fetch very high prices indeed. Both the Superfast versions are harder to find and fetch good prices, the one with the irregular shaped stickers being worth a little more.

This Matchbox/Lesney was sourced in February 2013 from eBay