Matchbox - Arnold - Chad Valley

[matchboxkiwi]

From what I can sort out Arnold of West Germany came up with the idea of the spring inserted track to tow small more cars around a circuit and bring other wise static models to life.
Lesney most likely saw the motorway at the Nuremberg toy fair of 1967 and saw the potential of using it for their models. ( after all Mattel had nothing like this). Approached Arnold for licensing rights which were granted with the exception of a couple of markets.
The original tracks were a realistic gray and green in colour. One of the two manufacturers wanted to change the colours of the tracks to appeal to a younger audience and the other didn't agree or Lesney changed the colours not informing Arnold and the licensing agreement broke down shortly afterwards.
Chad Valley then picked up the licence.

IMG_3110.JPG (95.67 KiB) Viewed 1638 times

IMG_3111.JPG (87.83 KiB) Viewed 1638 times

IMG_3112.JPG (93.62 KiB) Viewed 1638 times

Does anyone have one of these sets?

Cheers, Steve
Matchboxkiwi

[Scrumpy70]

I don't happen to have one of these (and have never seen one in the wild, for that matter) but there's one up on ebay at the mo for a pretty steep BIN price.

Also, a working model demonstrated here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su_bMdUeI84