Matchbox Superfast MB38-c Honda Motorcycle & Trailer

The #38 Honda motorcycle and trailer joined the SuperFast series in 1970 although the motorcycle retained its original diecast wire spoked wheels. The underside of the trailer was altered to accept a standard ´SuperFast´ black plastic axle clip to retain the 9.5x2mm 5 slot wheels.
The regular wheels colours of Muira yellow trailer with ´Honda´ labels and light metallic blue on the bike were retained for the first SuperFast run although examples have been found fitted with the earlier 'Honda' decals left over from the RW era. The motorcycle was then recoloured to dark metallic pink for one run, a shade one tone darker than that used for the #75 Alfa Carabou and #34 F1 racer.
This was followed by runs of motorcycles in bright nursery pink enamel and a further runs in the same deep pink used on the #70 Dodge Charger Funny car to the deletion of this casting as #38 in 1972.
It was only packaged in ´G´ boxes or blisterpacks with copyright dates between 1969 and 1972.

This tooling was revived in 1977 and continued until 1982 for new TP-8, with the trailer gaining 2 rivits to permenantly retain the axle enlarged black plastic axle clip and its 9.5x2mm open 5 slots which looked very much like the previous wheel design except for the removal of the inner chromed circle around the axle that had closed the slots.
The base number was removed and '838' was cast into the underside of the tool box which can be found in two distinct sizes of lettering, Initially for the first few years,dull orange was applied to all trailers before a return to the original Muira yellow for the trailers, many of which had the same ´Honda´ stickers although large quantities also left the factory without stickers.
The motorcycles for all TP-8 were dark metallic green, fitted with the original style wheels and stand.
Due to wear on some segments of the tool, the casting number on the base tab wore down and the 2 holes between the forks and the chain were filled in on some of the bike moulds numbered from 1,2,3 & 4.