Matchbox Superfast 19-e Road Dragster

The #19 Road Dragster was Lesney´s first true in-house generic design and was initailly released in time for Christmas 1970 packaged in ´G´ boxes and later ´I´ boxes plus all blister designs with copyright dates between 1969 and 1975.
Pre-production models were fitted with 12.5 x4mm spiro wheels on the front from the previous #19 Lotus F1 racer however standard production models required more bounce for their spring suspension strips so featured the same variations of 11.5 x4mm 5 slot wheels as used on the 45c Ford Group 6 which had a parallel career in the 1-75 series.
Very rare perhaps error models exist with 10x4mm 5 slots on the front. Rear wheels were always the 14 x5mm spiro truck wheels created for the #28 Mack and #49 Unimog.

Those very rare Road Dragsters found with spiro wheels on the front also can feature smaller cutouts for the front wheels on pre-pro baseplates and come with bodies featuring the thinner lip directly above the windscreen which was standard on the earliest production runs.
Pre-pro body shells had no raised lip above the windscreen,
1970 production had a thin lip above the windscreen and all subsequent production had a thicker lip above the windscreen.
Pre-pro components could have been thrown into the first production batch if they appear on a car in standard (1970-73) red candy coat paint finish. No other casting variations seem to exist beyond these lip re-enforcements made at the beginning of production save for miniscule differences between the right and left hand bodyshell twins made by the #19 mould.
The red candy coat comes in 2 common shade variations - this is a result of either orange or pink primer being applied first. One large batch were painted with pinkish red candy coat, probably made around the same time that pinkish red was applied in attempts to brighten up the 74b Daimler Double Decker circa 1972.

No later than 1974, perhaps even late 1973 (but after 1974 catalog was made) the body colour was changed to metallic magenta as used on the #39 Clipper. In amongst this magenta production was one hard to find batch from near the end of this casting´s life painted metallic red candycoat over gold primer just like the #36 Draguar and a much more common purplish variation that matches the new colour used on the #54 Capri in 1975.
Throughout its run yellow and red 8 ball stickers were specified which can be found applied either vertically or horizontally, whichever way chosen is the same for both the front and rear machine applied sticker.

Once the Scorpions battery cars were dropped this was one of the castings that excess Scorpions stickers were applied to in batches spanning both red and magenta production.
The only hard to find label variations were both sizes of ´´Wynns´´ stickers which have been found only on the pinkish red or orange red Road Dragsters.
Road Dragster components were shipped to Roly Toys of Brazil in relatively large numbers for painting in a wide range of colours before final assembly and local sale in local boxes.