Lesneys Karrier bantam "coca cola" bottle float joined the Matchbox 1-75 series in 1957, It can be found painted in either yellow or an orange-yellow and it had hand applied silver trim to the grille and front bumper.
It was enhanced with red & white "coca cola" decals to the advertising boards above the load area and to the rear end, The rear decals can be found in two sizes, The larger 13mm rear decals were the earliest and they were fitted to the 37a and 37b but were later replaced by the smaller 11.5mm rear decals on the 37b but both types were in use for quite some time. The side decals can be large or small on the 37a and small only on the 37b.
On the early issues the wheels were 8.5 x 18 grey metal, on the very first issues these were on flat head axles with crimped ends but soon dome head axles replaced them, towards the end of the models run it was fitted with 8 x 18 grey plastic wheels, this is a variation which is quite hard to find.
The 37a was never fitted with a baseplate so the model details are inscribed on the inside of the body, (The later 37b did have a baseplate).
There was only one casting variation ant this was to the crate load,
The early issues had a couple of odd crates stacked on top and this variation is known as the 'uneven load'.
This uneven load meant that there was difficulty ejecting the casting from the die during manufacture so they removed the uneven crates from the die leaving all later models with an 'even load'.
Older price guides give the uneven load variation the highest value but this is not a true reflection on it's rarity as it is a fairly common variation, the hardest one to find is undoubtedly the version fitted with grey plastic wheels, the even load with grey metal wheels version is the most common.
In 1960 the Karrier was replaced by an almost identical vehicle which was the exact same size but the new version was a completely new casting which did have a baseplate, the new model even used the smaller of the 37a decals.
The Karrier was sold in 'B' type boxes only and not in the 'C' type box as listed in some catalogues.
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