Matchbox Superfast MB73-c Mercury Commuter

Lesney made the easy decision to keep the stunning lime clearcoat over silver primer from the regular wheels Mercury for its first 2 years in the SuperFast range. This paint shade doesnt vary much at all by comparison to many other colours used on other toys 1969-73.
However, there is one large easy to find batch of transitional cars that featured widened wheel arches with thin 10.5x2mm slot wheels that has a thick coat of glossy police white underneath the lime clearcoat. Perhaps these were test shots of the newly modified wide wheel arches tool or more likely they may have been mixed up with the first run of the new 55 Mercury Police wagon to go through the paintshop.
Lesney decided to refresh this casting in 1971 by widening the wheel arches to allow lower friction wide 10.5x4mm 5 slot wheels to be fitted. At the same time it lost its petrol filler flap.
The baseplate had been shared with the 55 Mercury Police sedan, however the baseplate was changed to read No 59 or 73 to coincide with the release of the 59 Mercury Firechief sedan and the 55 Mercury Police wagon with its own unique new baseplate.
Wide wheels fitted to the lime wide wheel arch Mercury is much harder to find than the same with thin 10.5x2mm 5 slots.
In 1972 the tool was modernised again , with the addition of roof bars and a flat area on the bonnet/hood to allow a sticker to be applied, probably at the exact same time the previous flat roof was modified for twin police beacons because the hood modification is identical to both 55 and 73.
It was recoloured bright red over white primer at the same time and to date no casting crossovers have been found, so all red cars have roofbars and all lime cars have smooth roofs and original hood designs.
A bull´s head black on orange sticker was designed to be fitted to the hood of all red issues although cat´s head stickers from the no 1 Mod Rod have also been found and regarded as legitimate factory variation. This bull´s head sticker varies between batches, with square or round corners, thin or thicker black outlines.
Final modification to this casting before it was deleted in 1974 was the return of the petrol filler cap, which was always present on the 55 Police wagon, and seems to be featured on about half of the red no.73 Mercurys.
The last ones produced were painted in solid unprimed red which is a shade darker than the earlier white primed issues.
The no.73 Mercury came packaged in F boxes and G boxes as well as all US, Canadian and European blisterpack designs with copyright dates from 1969 to 1974. It was one of the very last models still produced with G boxes with supplies still being shipped from the factory in 1974.