In 1959 Lesney introduced the general service army lorry along with several other military vehicles to join the Matchbox 1-75 series in that year.
Like the other military vehicles it was painted olive green with olive green baseplate which was attached by a round rivet towards the front and a split rivet at the rear and it was usually enhanced with silver trim to the headlights and front bumper but this can vary,
It was fitted with knobbly tread 10 x 24 black plastic wheels which were mounted on dome head axles with crimped ends and later the only other variation on this model appeared when it was fitted with dome head axles with rounded ends.
It was fitted with a tow hook but Lesney never saw fit to make anything suitable for it to tow which was a real shame because a field gun would have looked superb behind the model as towing an artillery piece would have been the job of the real vehicle and it would have completed the 1-75 range of military vehicles that had been included in the 1-75 range so far,There are no known casting or wheel variations so there is little for the variation collector to look for except for the variations fitted with either crimped or rounded axles,
It can't have been a very successful model as today it is not a very coomon piece in mint and boxed or playworn condition and because it was replaced after only four years in the range by the 62b TV service van in 1963,
It is unusual simply because unlike most other models there are more box variations than there are model variations,
It was sold in three different box types, The 'B', 'C' and 'D' types are all available but the 'D' box is quite hard to find and unusually the 'B' and 'C' boxes both appeared with two identical illustrations,
One illustration is a three quarter view and the other is a closer to head on view, The threequarter view on the 'C' box is also uncommon.
It was not a great seller and there are few variations to look for and none of them are particularly rare.
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