Matchbox Superfast MB33-c Lamborghini Miura

The Lamborghini Muira was part of the original 1969 SuperFast launch wave, initially keeping its bright yellow regular ´realistic´ wheels colour. These yellow with red interior Muiras were commonly found packed inside the earliest Superfast Track sets complete with ´F´ boxes with red ´Superfast´ script to delight children on Christmas day 1969!.
Well known colour trials survive in private collections painted in metallic silver gray or the same shade of metallic blue that was used for the #64 MG1100.
The many transitional variations mixing Superfast gold bodies and white seats with regular wheels yellow bodies and red interiors ,clear or frosted rear louvres and baseplates with and without towguides and with and without Superfast wheels accurately reflects Lesneys ending flow line assembley of castings and switching to ´work enlargement´ production to minimise stock holdings and provide short runs of ´just in time´ yellow SuperFast cars for the earliest tracksets and gold regular wheels cars for Matchbox Motorways which were also selling very well in 1969.

The standard gold clearcoat over gold primer colour chosen for the bulk of Superfast production can be found on cars usually fitted with white seats, frosted rear window, solid or hollow 11x2mm thin Superfast wheels without tow guides although small runs were made with red seats and tow guides or even regular ´realistic´wheels. Tow guides were deleted very soon after the SuperFast baseplates went into production, featuring on a very small handful of gold cars but a significant minority of yellow bodied examples.
The Muira was recoloured to dark bronze clearcoat sprayed over gold primer for only one early SuperFast run, all having red seats,frosted rear windows and solid 11x2mm thin 5 slot wheels without tow guides.
These other early variations were packaged in normal black ´SuperFast´ script ´F´ boxes with a specially redrawn SuperFast Muira. Millions of common gold Muiras with white seats and thin wheels,no tow guide and frosted rear louvres went on to be packed in G boxes and USA or Canada copyright date 1969 to 1972 blisterpacks.

The switch to wide 10x4mm 5 slot wheels under bodies with enlarged wheel arches came by 1972 and these toys were packaged in ´G´ boxes or copyright 1972 worldwide blisterpacks, broomstick blisterpacks and all forms of Japanese packaging used 1977-1979. Most of the 1972 production featured baseplates painted in the same range of deep pink to dark red shades that featured on the #74 Daimler double decker bus. The final run for Japan featured black painted baseplates otherwise all UK made Muiras had unpainted baseplates. From 1972 to 1979 the shades of gold used lightened and became significantly less yellow with green undertones.
A minority of the made for Japan production featured the standard late 1970s 10x4mm dot-dash patterned wheels including the over production of Japanese issues shipped out of the factory in 1980 European multipacks.
Lesney shipped unassembled unpainted stocks of components to Brazil to allow them to paint and assemble the standard 1972 Muira variation in colours of their choice.
The Muira escaped conversion to basic Super GT specification so the original tooling for the #33 Muira was leased to the Mir factory in Bulgaria in 1985 although production in various colours was very limited because the tooling soon became defective beyond economic repair.