Matchbox 27c; Cadillac Sixty Special

If you've spent any time looking around these pages you will know how much I love the old Yankee fin monsters and this is right up there with the best of them. There is a 'Sixty Special' in my 1959 Observers Book of Automobiles, but this is not quite the same and I think it is a little older,1958 model perhaps?. The '56 model was the old El Dorado shape so it is definitely later than that.

The Cadillac Sixty Special (27c) was introduced in 1960 and remained in the range until 1966. It is seen in a range of colours, always two-tone with a cream or pale pink roof. Bases can be dark red, black or blue. The lower bodywork is pale green, silver-grey or metallic lilac. Ramsay lists an apple green version at very silly money which suggests it was a pre-production trial and one of the websites mentions brown versions not in Ramsey. My observation is that the lilac, silver & grey shades are similar, and it is hard to tell sometimes when silver becomes lilac. To achieve metallic shades Lesney used to spray the toy silver first and then spray a thin coat of colour over the top. The variations in shade on some of the older metallic coloured toys reflect how thick that second colour coat was, when the toy is just silver it is probable that the colour coat never happened at all.

Apple green pre-pro jobs aside there are some of these worth looking for. The metallic pale green ones are sought after as are the silver grey models or lilac with a blue base. Black base black wheels versions appear to be the most commonly found, but my research has been a bit contradictory on that. I suspect that a nice boxed one of these in any colour will always be in demand.