Lesneys 36b Lambretta motor scooter & side car replaced the Austin A50 in early 1961,
It was introduced to complement the Triumph T110 which Lesney had released six months previously, The Harley Davidson was still over a year away from joining the Matchbox series.
It was a beautiful little model but the fine casting meant that it was a little delicate and it is not unusual to find the handlebars broken from even the most lightly playworn models.
For Lesney this one must have been quite a money spinner because it had less parts than almost every other model so it must have been cheaper to produce.
Although the 14a ambulance had the same amount of parts as the Lambretta it also had silver trim to be applied and a red cross decal on the roof which the Lambretta had none of so for Lesney the Lambretta must have been the cheapest model to make out of the whole of the 236 models to appear in the 1-75 series regular wheel issues.The Lambretta was painted metallic green all over including the sidecar baseplate which was actually part of the motor scooter casting, The colour can vary in shade from a very light silvery metallic green to a much richer and deeper metallic green and I can't help thinking that the model could have been much improved by simply trimming the sidecar seat and driver seat in a contrasting colour, as previously mentioned it had no silver trim or decals.
It was originally fitted with knobbly 9 x 24 or 10 x 24 black plastic wheels but later finer tread 10 x 45 or 11 x 45 black plastic wheels were fitted,
The axles were always dome head with rounded ends.
There was only one minor casting variation to the base of the sidecar where a recess was cast in behind the sidecar wheel to maybe give a little more clearance between the base and the wheel,
This modification was probably carried out approximately halfway into the models life.
The Scooter was packaged in box types 'C' and 'D' and not just the 'C' type as listed in the Stannard.
There are no particularly rare variations although the darker green version is not quite as common as the light green.
It was replaced by the 36c Opel Diplomat in mid 1966.
