The Saladin (FV601) was a six-wheeled armoured car built by Alvis and used by the British Army. It replaced the AEC Armoured Car that had been in use during World War II. The Saladin shares much componentry, including an extremely thirsty Rolls-Royce eight-cylinder petrol engine, with the Saracen armoured personnel carrier, Stalwart High Mobility Load Carrier and Salamander fire tender. All of which also feature in the Lesney 1-75 range.

In 1959 Lesney introduced a small range of Army vehicles, and this was part of that capsule range. It is generally though that the range was not that successful in sales terms - but you do see a lot of this one round about. It was always military green, I've seen some brighter and some darker - but I guess that is just from the vagaries of the MB production line. The Saladin remained in the range right through to 1967 which probably explains its ubiquity.

Variations in value stem from box type and axle type. Early releases tend to be in C type boxes and have crimped axles (C Type Boxes are blue with a yellow side, on the yellow side is a drawing of the toy coloured in red, they are distinguished by having 'Matchbox Trade Mark' printed at the top of the yellow side), later releases are in D type boxes (these were the first with a coloured picture of the model and are distinguished by having the words 'Matchbox Series' in an arc over the picture. Last of all they came in the E type box which is similar to D type except that the word 'Series' is in smaller type above the picture and Matchbox is a single word arc above it.

Most common are D type boxes, which cover most of the production run, the later E type boxes are hardest to find with the early crimped axle C type boxes being somewhere in between.

Matchbox/Lesney 67a; Saladin Armoured Car 6X6; Olive Drab, Black Wheels, Crimped Axles (B Box)	Matchbox/Lesney 67a; Saladin Armoured Car 6X6; Olive Drab With Black Wheels (D Box)

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Last Edit: 12/06/2024		Page Added 04/04/2021