Lesney's model of the 10a scammell mechanical horse joined the Matchbox 1-75 series in 1955 and not in 1957 as wrongly stated in many catalogues.
It was a minute but accurate model of a vehicle that was usually seen at train stations in use by British railways during the fifties and sixties, One little known fact is the vehicle was also used by many other companies for warehouse duties throughout the UK and surprisingly it was also used as an aircraft tug by the Royal Navy for use on board their aircraft carriers. The first Lesney version was very tiny measuring just 56mm (2-1/4 inches) long,
It's livery was a crimson red cab and light grey trailer,
It was always fitted with flat head crimped axles and had varying amounts of hand applied gold trim,
The front axle was fitted with a single 6 x 18 grey metal wheel and the other axles could have either 7 x 18 or 7.5 x 18 grey metal wheels,
There was only one casting variation and that was a modification to underneath of the trailer where a brace was cast in between the trailer wheel carriers above the rear axle which was to to add some strength to what must have been a weak point.
It was packaged in 'B' type boxes olny and in 1958 after just three years in the range was replaced by another almost identical but larger scale mechanical horse the number 10b.
