By 1957 Lesney had noticed their increased sales in the USA and to encourage further sales they introduced the first foreign vehicle to the range which was the American built 1956 Ford station wagon which entered the Matchbox 1-75 series at number 31.
The Ford was only painted in the one colour scheme which was bright yellow all over.
It was enhanced with silver trim to the headlights, Grille, Front & rear bumpers and to the bonnet (hood) mascot,
Red trim was applied to the tail lights but some examples have been seen without the red trim applied.Early issues had a flat black baseplate and later issues with gloss black base,
The baseplate was attached by a round rivet at the front and by a tongue & slot at the rear and unusually there was no tow hook cast on the baseplate and this was possibly because the length of the model made it a tight fit in the box and the inclusion of a tow hook would probably puncture the endflap when in transit.
Grey metal wheels were originally fitted but the last runs were fitted with grey plastic wheels, Flat head axles with crimped ends were used to begin with but later dome head axles were used, firstly with crimped ends but were later modified to rounded ends.
Casting variations were all confined to the underneath of the bonnet (hood),
The first issue had a smooth underneath to the bonnet,
This was soon modified with the inclusion of three pips cast just forwards of where the dashboard would be,
Next a brace was added which ran the full width of the dashboard,
And finally two ejector rings were cast just forwards of the dashboard which are just visible when looking under the front wheel wells.
The Ford is a fairly common model so it must have been a popular toy and a good seller,
It was available in 'B' type boxes and it was replaced by the 31b the 1959 version of the Ford station wagon in 1960.
