Matchbox Superfast MB41-c Ford GT40 racing car

The Ford GT40, Jack Odell´s "the best selling minature of all time", was one of the first wave of regular wheels castings to join the SuperFast range in good time for Christmas 1969.
Initially paint, sticker, body shell, interior and glazing were exactly the same as the regular wheels issue. The baseplate was modified to accept the plastic spring that retained the 11.5x2mm 5 slot SuperFast wheel sets and the ride height increased slightly to give a smaller sprung suspension effect than normally found on other members of the 1970 1-75 series.

The earliest release was packaged in the same regular wheels `F´ box design but with ´SuperFast´ added in red, a scarce and desirable box today.
A very finely designed SuperFast ´F´ box with the legend in black quickly followed for another short run before millions of ´G´ boxes were made in the last 2 years of this casting as #41.
The Ford GT40 can also be found in all blisterpack designs with copyright dates between 1969 and 1971 as well as all Japanese boxes and blisterpacks dated 1977-79 and some two-pack and multipack issues from 1979-81.

Earliest releases had gloss black baseplates and solid wheels, but in common with the rest of the range hollow wheels and brightly coloured baseplates became the norm during 1970. White bodied GT40s are only found with black or green baseplates (same shade as used on #56 Fiat bodies).
In 1971 the GT40 was recoloured to tomato coloured clearcoat over gold primer - this shade can vary in orangeness with the relative thickness of both coats and a hard to find miniority even appear to be the same red as some #15 VW Beetles.These thin wheeled tomato coloured GT40s are commonly found with baseplates painted primrose yellow (from the #45 Corsair body shade) if not in the same #56 Fiat green or the less common black.

Shortly after the recolour, the body tool was modified with enlarged wheel arches in preparation for the switch to the new standard 10x4mm 5 slot wider wheels designed to be lower friction without axle wobble for better trackset performance. Transitional tomato cars with enlarged arches and thin wheels are hard to find but were made.
Wide wheeled tomato GT40s came initially with the same green or primrose baseplates and later on painted yellow (38b Victor body shade) or charcoal gray (mixed up leftover paint from the available open stocks).
Lesney supplied unassembled unpainted components for both wheel and arch versions to Roly Toys of Brazil from 1970 to assemble in colours of their own choosing before the tooling went into store for upto 4 years.

This tooling was revived for the exclusive Japanese series released in 1977, once again in white with the original race #6 sticker, black baseplate and 10 x 4mm 5 slots. Towards the end of production for Japan, dot dash 10x5mm wheels became standard and the sticker on the front became whatever was available on the day, which includes the #1 Mod Rod leopard head and the #62 Renault 17 label .

One special and very scarce run in yellow with dot dash wheels was made for the Italy only MP1 release, and following the end of the Japanese range remaining stocks were sent out inside two packs and multipacks to UK and European stores. Although beyond the scope of these listings, it must be mentioned that in 1987 this tooling was leased to Metalbox of Hungary for one year, the resulting toys being in many colours with dot dash wheels.
This tooling then passed to the Mir factory in Bulgaria and began many more years of production in a whole rainbow of colours and tampos with black,red or yellow seats and standard dot dash wheels. It is still Jack Odell´s best selling minature of all time!