Matchbox 37f; Matra Rancho

Corgi and Matchbox both produced models of the Matra Rancho and both companies made it in both large & small scale, I think this is about the best out of the lot, the Matchbox King-Size version being by far the worst - it is terrible.

I passed on the first one of these I saw because I assumed the missing top tailgate was broken off, actually it doesn't have one. That aside the modelling is good.

The car was added to the Lesney range in 1982 in blue, in 1983 it was recoloured yellow and almost immediately after it had been released the company went to the wall. Production continued under the new company ownership and a number of new colour versions were released. Of the two Lesney releases the later yellow version is the harder to find.