Matchbox 13a/13b; Bedford Wreck Truck

Instead of a page each for 13a and 13b I have decided to show them on the same page as it makes the differences easier to spot. The first one, 13a, was released in 1955 and was superseded by 13b in 1958, 13b remained in the range until 1960 when it was replaced by 13c the Ford Thames Trader Wreck Truck. Ramsay's though wrongly lists 13b as (Ford Thames) Wreck Truck. It is clearly a Bedford O Type, same as 13a, which was in production as a full size lorry from 1939 to 1953, curious then that Matchbox introduced a completely new casting of it in 1958 five years after the real thing went out of production. I can only guess that was because wreckers were usually old wagons that were converted by garages for their own use as recovery vehicles, so they were often old models and this added to the authenticity of the model. Just a guess.

A number of the 13a versions you see will have lost their jib because there was a weakness in the original design and it came off quite easily. One of the changes brought in for 13b was to anchor the jib to the rear axle which means that most 13b trucks still have the jib in place. This difference in the attachment of the jib and the longer rear body on 13b are the ways to tell which one you have.

These toys are fairly common and there are no rare versions. The plastic wheel version of 13b is slightly harder to find than the metal wheel version. In 1993 the then owners of Matchbox re-released a small range of the early Lesney toys, which they called Matchbox Originals, and 13a was one of them, in red & yellow.