Matchbox 40d; Vauxhall Guildsman

This was a design concept pulled from the annual 'Vauxhall Craftsman's Guild' design competition which GM ran for a number of years in the 60s and 70s. Young people were asked to produce designs for concept cars as a 3d model. I actually sent off for all the entry stuff myself, but never finished my car, I got as far as carving the body from a solid block of wood. I think mine was going to be an amalgam of the Merc C111 and the Lotus Europa, my favourite cars at the time. This car was a prize winning design from one of the kids which found its way into the Matchbox range. This is from a letter written by Phil Gannon who designed it:

"I was the designer and modeller of the original way back in the 1968/69 competition year! I still have the original model, sketch plans and Vauxhall information. I was placed third in the competition. The competition ran from 1965 to 1970, I entered three times being successful in year one in the top twenty five, year two 4th place and finally year three 3rd. Lesneys (Matchbox) approached Vauxhall to produce a model from one of the thousands of designs submitted over the five year period, mine being the only one selected!

All entrants were given a number and all rights for publicity were given to Vauxhall Motors as part of the competition, however ,two years after the competition I was awarded a further £25 for the model being produced. Out of interest the second and fourth place winners went on to work for Jaguar Cars and Land-Rover design depts. Should anyone be interested in further information relating to the model, competition or details of the original model, please do not hesitate to contact me."

Matchbox released the model in 1971 in bright pink with a comet design sticker on the bonnet, the base is either silver or unpainted and the background to the star at the head of the comet can be blue or black. In 1975 the Streakers version came out, initially remaining pink and then recoloured brick red. The Streakers car has a cream racing stripe and racing number 40. In 1976 the red car lost its Streakers tampos and reverted to the comet sticker or plain bodywork with no design on it.

The ones to look for are the pink Streakers, very hard to find and worth good money, and the brick red with the comet sticker gets a small premium, the rest are all very similar in value.