Matchbox Superfast MB18-e Field Car

In 1970 the #18 Scout Field car lost its autosteer feature with coloured hubs and separate tyres in favour of deeper sprung suspension and SuperFast wheels. It was packaged mostly in ´G´ boxes but also in ´I´ boxes as well as all blisterpacks with copyright dates between 1969 and 1972. It retained its regular wheels colours of Muira yellow, ivory seats, red-brown roof and plated baseplate for its run as #18 in the 1-75 series.
Initially 12.5x2mm thin 4 slot truck tyres were fitted with a hard to find short run (featured in both 1971 and 1972-73 international collector catalogues) made with the 5 slot 12.5x4mm thick truck tyres.However the vast majority produced had 12.5x4mm wide 4 slot truck tyres fitted. Note all types of 12.5mm tyres were hollow, none were solid.

The words ´Pat App´ were added to the baseplate shortly after the Superfast conversion so SuperFast baseplates without 'Pat App' are much harder to find. The roof of the body casting was strengthened by filling in the originally hollow triangles, and later in its two pack career smoothed out completely. Bearing in mind the fact that there were twin body shells produced by the body tool as well as twin, perhaps triplet or quad baseplates produced by the baseplate tool, there are some tiny casting differences which can be seen but in fact were produced in equal numbers over all variations - perhaps the most noticeable being the ´A´ pillar of half of all bodies is smooth and on the other half features a groove.
The components for the wide 4 slot wheeled version were supplied unpainted for painting in various colours & assembley by Roly Toys of Brazil before the tooling went into storage for 3 years.

The tooling was revived in 1976 for the new two-pack range without #18 cast on the baseplate, initially as TP12 with the first short run in now hard to find dark army olive green with black seats & baseplate, tan roof and a choice of either 12.5x4mm 4 slots or 11x5mm 5 square slots (from #32 Maserati) wheels which were left plain black plastic.
Huge numbers were later made in a lighter colour standard olive green again featuring either wheel type and black seats with a tan roof which was smooth like the regular wheels roofs until the tooling wore out and new moulds were made with textured roofs. These usually carried white A on a red & blue block stickers on their doors but a minority received white US army stars on their bonnets instead.

This versatile casting was selected from 1977 for TP-9 to be painted metallic red with black seats & baseplate, tan hood, hot foiled 4 slot 12.5x4mm or 11x5mm 5 square slot wheels and a race #44 hood sticker as a two pack tow car for the #44 F1 racer.
It was later selected also for TP- 8 painted insipid orange (and final short runs in dark yellow and bright orange) with black hood and seats to match the former #38 Honda motorcycle trailer although a very hard to find very short run of these Field cars were painted white and carried the same checkered flag bonner sticker.

Small quantities of otherwise standard TP-8 and TP-9 Fieldcars had silver painted baseplates instead of black, and sometimes odd old stock stickers intended for deleted castings were fitted to these on days when insufficient volumes of correct labels were available to get toys finished and blistered.
Rare crossovers exist of TP8 and TP9 fitted with unchromed wheels intended for the TP-12 army issues with tiny quantities of army issues having hot foiled wheel hubs. For 1982,the final issues in bright orange featured ´Scout Racing #179´ tampos which confirmed Lesney´s use of the Scout name & design with liberal artisic license when this toy was designed in 1968. These toys used up both tan TP-9 and black TP-8 roofs.