37c Dodge Cattle Truck

Moko Lesney Matchbox 37c Dodge cattle truck

Lesney introduced the Dodge Cattle Truck into the Matchbox 1-75 series in 1966 and it was always painted a bright yellowy-orange,
It had 11.5 x 45 black plastic wheels mounted on dome head axles with rounded ends and it was fitted with a green tinted window unit.
The first issue had no braces supporting the rear of the plastic load bed beneath the rear door but all later issues had braces cast beneath the rear door which was the only casting modification to the body.
A silver plastic baseplate was fitted to the early versions but for some reason Lesney reverted back to a die cast metal baseplate for the later issues, Possibly this was because Corgi's Husky range of toys were fitted with plastic baseplates and Husky could never match Lesneys quality or possibly there were too many rejected baseplates during assembly, Whatever the reason, I guess we'll never know now.
Finally a tow guide was added to the last of the metal baseplates which was the only casting modification to the baseplate.

The plastic cattle box and rear door which was hinged to the bottom of the cattle box can be found in at least 5 different colour shades, Light brownish grey, Light grey, Brownish grey, Brown and finally grey.
To add to play value it came with two white plastic Bulls affixed to a sprue.
It was available in box types 'E' and 'F' and it was converted to superfast wheels in 1969 and deleted a year later.
All variations are fairly common except for the first variant without the braces under the cattle box which is quite scarce but does not fetch particularly high prices because the braces were below the cattle body so the model would not stand out as a different variation when in the display cabinet.
The Dodge truck was adapted to become a road sweeping vehicle but it never got past the prototype stage and was deleted, The Dodge was fitted with a tanker body and a gully sucking hose and street washing attachments were cast into the front bumper but sadly only one example of the road sweeping Dodge is known to exist.

Above : Cattle box colours, left rear - brown. left front - light brownish grey. centre rear - brownish grey.

centre front - light grey. right front - medium grey

Above : Left - chromed base no braces. 2nd left - chromed base with braces. center - metal base no towing hitch.

2nd right - metal with towing hitch. right - superfast.

Above : die cast & plastic baseplates, with & without cattle box braces

Above : die cast baseplates with & without towing guide

code number	general	wheel type	cattle box braces	baseplate type	cattle box colour
code 1	yellow body green windows	11.5 x 45 black plastic	no cattle box braces	chromed plastic baseplate without tow hitch	light brownish grey
code 2	yellow body green windows	11.5 x 45 black plastic	with cattle box braces	chromed plastic baseplate without tow hitch	light brownish grey
code 3	yellow body green windows	11.5 x 45 black plastic	with cattle box braces	chromed plastic baseplate without tow hitch	light grey
code 4	yellow body green windows	11.5 x 45 black plastic	with cattle box braces	metal baseplate without tow hitch	light grey
code 5	yellow body green windows	11.5 x 45 black plastic	with cattle box braces	metal baseplate without tow hitch	brownish grey
code 6	yellow body green windows	11.5 x 45 black plastic	with cattle box braces	metal baseplate without tow hitch	brown
code 7	yellow body green windows	11.5 x 45 black plastic	with cattle box braces	metal baseplate with tow hitch	medium grey

box types	notes
E3	"new model" brown cows shown
E4	white cows shown, one model number
E4R	white cows shown
F2	A Lesney Product
F2	"Matchbox" is the reg'd TM of Lesney Products & Co Ltd London England

values

without braces beneath cattle box £40

all other models £20

values are for mint models in mint boxes

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