Matchbox Superfast MB62-d Mercury Cougar Dragster

The #62 1967 Mercury Cougar tooling was updated during 1970 to become the ´Rat Rod´ Dragster. It gaining new smooth sides without opening doors and a new bonnet with a recess that accomodated a high mounted chrome plated engine as well as a new baseplate - very much inspired by Hotwheels then current stance and exposed engines.
These Cougar were normally packaged in ´G´ boxes or any blisterpack with copyright dates 1970 to 1974.
Colour trials and pre-pros still exist in 3 different shades of red with 3 different types of rear wheels suggesting that this was an initial favoured colour.

The first ´Rat Rod´ production run featured dayglow yellow clearcoat over white primer with the short run lipless 5 square slot 10x4mm front wheels (best known from the tomato red #8e) and 12.5x3mm truck 5 slots which are very hard to find today.
These Cougar Dragsters were then produced for the rest of their 4 year run with 12.5x4mm 4 slot truck wheels on the rear and standard wide lipped 10x4mm 5 slots on the front. The colour was changed to dayglow lime over white primer for the rest of its UK production, with shade variations caused by double thickness of white primer for lightest or a double thickness of lime clearcoat for the darkest bodies. This casting is also very prone to sunfade so it needs close examination to determine the genuine dayglow yellow first run castings if they dont have the earliest wheels described.

The tooling for this casting when filled with metal produced a sprue with left and right hand bodyshells - there is a very obvious difference which separates these twins - the vents on top of the firewall can be normal slats or square boxed slats but as these were made in equal numbers at the same time all variations exist with both bodies. There was one casting modification during the 4 year run - the engine mount started off with slots at the back and front ends which were subsequently cast closed.

All Cougar Rat Rods had the same red seats and clear glazing unit inherited from the #62c.
Lesney managed to fit the correct ´Rad Rod´ labels to most of the #62ds however small quantities are know to exist with the perhaps more appropriately titled yellow ´Wildcat´ labels from the #8f Mustang.
All baseplates and engines were plated baremetal except for one silver painted run in 1973 made during the 3 day week when all sorts of supplies were hard to get.
Roly Toys of Brazil imported these Mercury Cougars 1972-75 in component form to be painted and assembled locally in a variety of colours, which included at least one run that looked stunning in white with snake labels from the #70 Charger Dragster.
Lesney made no further use of this tooling.