Matchbox Superfast 22-d Freeman Intercity Commuter

The Freeman Intercity Commuter was closely based upon a 1965 design on paper which was never built. It joined the 1-75 series in 1970 and was packaged in ´G´ boxes and all blisterpacks with copyright dates between 1970 and 1975. There is a relatively scarce ´G´ box variation from the very first run which does not include the yellow arrow sticker that featured on all subsequent UK production.
The yellow-arrow-on-a -black-background sticker seems to have been added to all the Freeman production and its box art after the initial run, and note that these stickers are handed so sometimes can appear pointing towards the rear instead of the front!

The initial production runs carried over the purple candycoat over silver primer from the previous #22 Pontiac GP and this came in 2 shades both with or without yellow arrow stickers.
The first recolour was to the same gold candycoat over pink primer (looks lighter gold) or orange primer (looks darker gold) that was used for both main shades of the deleted gold SF#46 Mercedes 300SE. For its final couple of years the Freeman was painted with either of the same metallic magenta and metallic burgundy colours used on the SF#45 Ford Group 6 produced concurrently.

All Freemans were fitted with clear untinted glazing, ivory or off white seats dependant upon how much white was mixed into the raw plastic and the same 11.5 x4mm 5 slot wheels as fitted to the SF#45 Ford Group 6 & SF#68 Porsche 910.
One batch of magenta Freemans had silver painted baseplates however all of the other production had plated baseplates.
Components for the Freeman were shipped to Roly toys of Brazil for painting in a variety of colours and final assembly which often included the correct stickers. No further use was ever made of this tooling post 1975.