Matchbox Superfast MB53-c Ford Zodiac MkIV

The Ford Zodiac MkIV joined the SuperFast range in 1970, initially in its regular wheels shade of metallic silver-blue packaged in an F box.
It lasted 2 years and was most commonly packaged in ´G ´ boxes but can also be found in USA and Canada blisterpacks with copyright dates between 1969 and 1971.
The Zodiac was re-coloured with emerald green clearcoat over silver primer, although one substantial run with thin tyres which is the darkest shade to be found was clearcoated over gold primer. On subsequent runs the green clearcoat over silver became 2 shades lighter giving 4 distinctly different greens, the lightest of which is only found on wide wheel issues.
The final run was painted in lime clearcoat over white primer,the shade varies slightly with the relative thicknesses of each coat.
The metallic silver-blue,the lime and the emerald over gold primer issues are very much in demand and command much higher prices than the very common green over silver primer issues.
The bodyshell casting was modified in 1971 with enlarged wheelarches to allow the plastic sprung suspension to work effectively with the new standard size wide wheels designed to give cars more stability on tracksets.
The windows were always clear plastic and the interior is always ivory and so far no superfast examples have been found with the rare violet coloured interiors found in a very few regular wheel Zodiacs.
The Zodiac was fitted with 11x2 mm thin usually solid 5 slot wheels on the earliest blue and green SuperFast issues with 10.5x2mm usually hollow but less commonly solid 10.5x2mm 5 slot wheels on the bulk of metallic green original wheel arch bodies.
10x4mm wide 5 slot wheels were fitted to the vast majority of the widened wheel arch bodies although a substantial number of baseplates fitted with thin wheels were used up on wide wheel arch metallic green bodies. However, a traditional solid all black 11mm regular wheel was still fitted under the opening bonnet on all issues.
There is no documented use of this casting by Brazilian or Bulgarian producers.