Matchbox 36f; Refuse Truck

This is a toy from the last days of Lesney which survived into the new ownership. You will see them with Lesney, England on the baseplate and Matchbox Toys Ltd and made in the Far East, these later trucks post-dating the Lesney crash in 1982/3.

This dust cart is based on a Ford/Iveco chassis and has a plastic rear body with a slider along the bottom which operates an unloading mechanism, opening the rear loader at the same time. It was added to the Lesney range in 1980.The first releases had a metallic red cab with a yellow back-body, some of these have the word 'Collectomatic' cast into the front of the back body over the cab, some do not.

In 1982 the cab was changed to blue and the back body can be orange or yellow or orange with a yellow opening loader on the back, the slider can be red or black. The blue ones have labels on the back body reading 'Metro DPW66'. The other 20 or so colour variations you will see are post-Lesney releases. The only Lesney which demands a premium is the red/yellow release where the word 'Collectomatic' is missing from the back-body.