Matchbox 7d; Hairy Hustler

The Hairy Hustler is one of the family of made up supercars released by Matchbox in the early Seventies, it actually a bit more convincing than some of them. Referenced as 7d it was released in 1971 and stayed in the core 1-75 range until 1977, with some later special releases up to 1979. From 1971 to 1974 it was metallic bronze with usually orange windows, a very few have purple windows. bases can be black, grey or green and the stickers can vary. Usually they have a racing number 5 on a white sticker on the bonnet with a 5 repeated on the sides against an arrow-head shaped sticker in blue or yellow. Racing numbers an also be 3 or 137, sometimes mixed with RN5 and a further variation puts a scorpion sticker on the bonnet.

In 1975 the colour was changed to white with Streakers tampos. The design is a double red stripe along the top surface of the wings and a central black and white chequer panel centrally placed running the length of the car. These can have a black or grey base. Post deletion from the core range a plain white car with a grey base was released in 1978 and in 1978/9 a US Roman Numerals version was released in yellow with red flame tampos.

There are some rarities which attract a premium on the price. Look out for purple windows, that could bump the value up ten times, also any of the sticker sets on the bronze car other than the RN5 bonnet & sides combo will get a premium.