Matchbox Superfast MB24-c Rolls Royce Silver Shadow

The Rolls Royce Silver Shadow joined the SuperFast range in 1970 keeping its previous regular ´realistic´ wheels colours for its whole 2 year run as #24. The red clearcoat over silver primer actually became more of a rose red shade with dark pink undertones as each new batch of paint was purchased.
The body casting wheel arches were widened in 1971 to allow the plastic sprung suspension to remain effective when wide 10x4mm 5 slot wheels replaced the common 11x2mm solid or hollow 5 slot wheels or 10.5x2mm hollow 5 slots fitted to all Superfast issues with original low wheel arch bodyshells. Scarce cross overs exist with thin wheels and enlarged arches.

Baseplates were usually painted gloss black however leftover stocks of #29 Austin metallic green, #23 caravan pink and YesterYear silver gray were used up on a minority which were all fitted with wide 5 slot wheels.
This tooling was revived in 1977 for the exclusive Japanese series, recoloured to the same shade of gold over silver or gold primer that had been used for the #69 Rolls convertable. Most had the same wide 5 slot wheels although the then new standard 10x5mm dot dash wheels were fitted on a significant minority.

The body casting had to be altered by further enlargement of the wheel arches with flared lips to allow the plastic sprung suspension to work effectively with these wider wheels.
The side windows lower ledge seems to have been thickened at the same time, although given the relocated rear door outlines there is a slim possibility that the body tool wore out and was remade or at least the two sides were remade.
The revised body casting can be found fitted with the previous 5 slots making 3 variations of the gold Japanese casting. This was done just ahead of the new 39d Silver Shadow II joining the 1-75 series.

The Rolls was always packaged in ´G´ boxes or copyright 1969 to 1972 blisterpacks before it was deleted, and then following its 1977 revival for the exclusive Japanese series featured in all styles of Japanese packaging issued 1977-79 as well as European two packs and multi-packs in 1980.

Final use of this tooling was a 1985 one year lease to Bulgaria which resulted in different body and seat colours being made and fitted with 10x5mm dot-dash wheels although these issues are beyond the scope of this site.