Matchbox Superfast MB71-c Ford heavy wrecker

The #71 Ford heavy wrecker joined the SuperFast series in 1970 for a 2 year production run retaining its regular wheels colours. It was always packaged in G boxes or copyright 1969 to 1972 blisterpacks.
It was always fitted with hot foiled 4 slot 12.5x4mm common truck wheels retained with a standard short axle clip in black or dark red on the front axle & a black double clip best known from the #30 crane on the rear. It retained green glazing , red (bright or dark shades) plastic tow hook and ´Esso´ labels which can have either a thin or slightly thicker blue ring around the name.

The tooling was revived in 1977 for use as an Army wrecker in the two pack series, with at least colour trials being made in the extra dark olive drab and then the main production in standard olive green with green glazing, paper labels, black towhooks and unchromed wheels of the original style.
A small proportion of production featured hotfoiled wheels identical to those used on the Esso issues.
The only tooling change for this re-ssue was rivits cast on the baseplate to secure the the axle covers permenantly.
Surplus unpainted castings were painted medium blue which was close to the Aral shade and built up circa 1980 and packed in multipacks which included a Tesco special pack. These also featured hot foiled wheels on only approximately half of the production.