'Superfast' wheel designs.

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Thank's Hugh, did you fully understand what I was trying to describe?

GHOSTHUNTER.

[Idris]

Thank's Hugh, did you fully understand what I was trying to describe?

I think so.

[motorman]

Thank's Hugh, did you fully understand what I was trying to describe?

GHOSTHUNTER.

I understood mate. So does this mean we have 2 variations of the prepro SF disc wheel or is it a stand alone prepro wheel hub type?

[GHOSTHUNTER]

I think wheel design 1, was an attempt to make a low friction version of their recently introduced 'Hub and tyre' combination because it is similar to them. The very first 'Chrome' effect hub and tyre effect wheel did have a smooth central area, created by moulding a seperate hub, plating it and then making it a push-fit into a Black plastic tyre. This was modified by moulding a seperate tyre to fit over the plated hub and a smaller circular disc can be seen in the centre of these hubs just to give the impression of a slightly more sculpted hub cap, quite easily seen on the Iso Griffo below.

#14a Iso Griffo in Blue..jpg (102.37 KiB) Viewed 2640 times

I do not know why wheel design 1, was not put into full production and there must be no more than a handfull of cars with them in existance, so the chances of finding them is slimmer, than finding models with wheel design 2.

GHOSTHUNTER.

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Thank's to Tim ("tjlglass"), we now know that wheel design 2 has tool numbers moulded on the inboard surface, I wonder if design 1 also has them, because they are the very first design that we know of during the development of the 'Superfast' range, I rather doubt they have numbers, but would love to be proven wrong.

Wheel design 2 has hand scribed numbers of low values, this seems logical, early moulds for making plastic wheels will be entered into the tooling log and we also know single numbers have got onto wheel design 3, not only that but it seems some moulds had their numbers defaced with alternative numbers, action taken to update the design very slightly for some reason.

Single numbers naturally became Double numbers, then they added a 'Prefix' letter, a 'Suffix' letter and even both on some wheels.

The following list is an overview of the letters used, unused or not yet seen and the date they have been seen in use.
'A' 'PREFIX' to Single and Double numbers = very late 1969 into 1970.
'A' 'SUFFIX' to Single and Double numbers = 1969 and 1970.
'B' not used, not seen.
'C' 'PREFIX' to numbers = 1970.
'D' = 1970.
'E' = 1970.
'F' = 1970.
'G' = 1970.
'H' = 1970.
'i' not used, not seen.
'J' = 1970.
'K' = 1971.
'L' = 1971.
'M' = 1971.
'N' = 1971.
'O' = 1971 (the 'O' here is moulded onto a raised platform when this is the wide wheel).
'P' not used, not seen.

During 1971, the Narrow wheel design was replaced by a Wider design.

I will add to and update this listing as information is processed.

1st UPDATE...With a forum member now having a colour trial model from 1970 (#24 Silver Shadow), with 'J' wheel numbers, it is tempting to fill-in the missing Year dates as it must follow that now we have a date of 1970 for 'J', the letters above this in the table must also be 1970. I will hold off for a while to continue the research in case an unusual model crops up with conflicting wheel numbers.

2nd UPDATE...Having myself just added an early #24 Silver Shadow to my collection, I can add the date of 1970 to the 'G' and 'H' letters in the above list.

3rd UPDATE..."Matchboom" has supplied some '0' numbers from Two 32c 'NAMC' promotional fuel tankers, I believe these are the first I have knowledge of and both feature the Hollow design.

4th UPDATE...'F' numbers confirmed on the 46c Mercedes-Benz 300 SE.

5th UPDATE...I have recently aquired a 'Long Seat' #69 Rolls-Royce with 'G' and 'H' suffix numbers, One wheel with '82A' and One wheel with 'F2 3C' but the letter 'C' is reversed!

GHOSTHUNTER.

[SMS88]

What convincing evidence is there available to suggest A suffix or A prefix wheel moulds were in use in 1969? Were they used on brown SF25 Cortinas which were the last 1969 production

[GHOSTHUNTER]

The only Brown Cortina offered so far is from "Matchboom" with...34B, 19B, 43B and 44B numbers. More than One example of the Rolls-Royce in Blue has the A21A number which could be either...

A2,
A 21A,
A2 1A,
A21 A,

I would like to see more 'AxxA' numbers.

GHOSTHUNTER.

[Idris]

I'll try to remember to check my brown Cortina and blue Merc. (both bought in the early '80s and therefore likely to be genuine) this weekend.

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Thank's Hugh, it would be handy to see as many Brown Cortina wheels as possible, to get a good selection of their numbers. I know Mick and others have been here before with commenting on wheels, numbers and dates of issue etc (in the old re-posted threads earlier), but this time I wanted to establish more accurate dates of when this all took place. It is such a fascinating area of Matchbox history and I am sure many collectors (currently not coming here to comment... ), would like to know when certain models they have in their collections were actually issued into the range or onto the open retail markets.

So far this is shaping up into a nice data bank of wheel information with the help of Olivia ("Matchboxboom"), Mick and David ("Vetrad"), etc, all because I wanted to put a specific date to my 'Satin' Black based #69 Rolls-Royce. I suppose I could have just asked Mick and he would have given me a fairly accurate date, based on the wheel numbers, but I wanted to find out myself with the information piggy-backed onto a proper article that hopefully will benefit other members.

So thank's Guys, all input and pictures welcomed and lets have some more.

GHOSTHUNTER.

[SMS88]

we havent documented wheel numbers on brown SF Cortinas yet but remember while a quantity were made in 1969 the bulk may have been made in 1970. The same goes for the SF69 with AxxA wheel mould numbers, what evidence is there that this particular car was 1969 production rather than 1970?? The 40 years book actually states for 1969 SF production the assembley lines switched from making large continuous runs to making smaller batches for immediate shipping not stock holdings