At the end of 1964 Lesney introduced the Lincoln continental which became the third American built vehicle to occupy the number 31 slot in the matchbox 1-75 series.
It has an ivory plastic interior which unusually did not have a tow hook molded in,
The windows were clear plastic but the model was designed with all the side windows in the open position so just the front and rear screens were present.
The baseplate was silver plated and the casting included the grille and headlight detail so silver trim was not needed on this model.
To add to play value the boot (trunk) was cast as a seperate piece so it could be opened, the early boot lids had a flush ejector ring cast inside but later the ejector ring stood proud, also some boot lids could have a reversed image of a number cast on the inside but this is not found on the early or late issues. there was also a casting modification to the inside of the boot where the boot hinges locate, early issues had a larger opening for the hinges to locate into but this was later closed up, none of the boot variations have been included in the variation table as I need more examples to compare.
The first issue was painted a very dark metallic blue but shades do vary. The earliest metallic blue versions do not have a tow guide cast into the baseplate but the tow guide can be found on later issues of the metallic blue.The model was later recoloured to turquoise and is listed as sea green in some catalogues, all turquoise issues had a towing guide cast into the baseplate.
In 1970 the model was converted to superfast wheels and recoloured to metallic lime green and as has been seen with other issues some of the first recoloured superfast bodies were paired up with regular wheel bases leaving us with a very hard to find variation, like the turquoise version all the metallic lime green models had a tow guide cast on the baseplate.
The dark metallic blue and turquoise versions are quite common but the metallic lime green is a very rare variation.
The Lincoln was packaged in 'E' and 'F' type boxes which can illustrate the dark metallic blue or the turquoise versions, the earliest boxes were printed before the models colour scheme had been decided so they show a red Lincoln on the front.
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