Matchbox 22e; Blaze Buster

Blaze Buster was one of a long line of Matchbox Fire Engines and, given that it was released in the mid-seventies, it is follows the trend of Matchbox cars and trucks of the time of not being a model of a real truck, rather a made-up one. It was released in 1975 and up to 1980 was bright red with usually a plated interior and an unpainted base. The ladder was either yellow, black or white. During this time some also had black or dark grey bases. From 1980 to 1982 the colour was dark red with a white interior and a black or grey base. In 1983 the colour became light red with a black base and a dark yellow ladder, some of these last models do not have the 'FIRE' labels and have a number 32 label instead.

I've heard it said that at the Lesney factory if they needed some plastic parts, like ladders for this fire engine, they just went ahead with whatever colour plastic was in the moulding machine, and on the very frequent occasions that the plating machine packed up, models were made with unplated parts displaying whatever colour of plastic in which they had been moulded. I'm sure that spraying of baseplates followed the same logic and where stickers were involved - you run out of the sticker detailed in the spec, so you used whatever stickers you had in stock. This one seems to have been a product of that chaotic making process.

Most of these variations are of very low value, the only versions which are worth chasing down are the bright red ones from 1975-80 with white ladders, black ladders also raise a small premium.