Owt or Nowt?

[Idris]

Unfortunately, as is so often the case, this model came without any provenance.

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Is it possible to see any leters or numbers on the inside surface from the use of proper tooling. If not, a USB optical microscope like the one used by Olivier (''matchboon'') uses for the tool numbers on 'Superfast' wheels may be helpful.

If none exist, could it be a 3D printed body?

Ghosthunter.

[Idris]

It is most definitely not a 3D-printed body! I am 100% certain that it is a moulding. It is also impossible to see any of the inside of the bodyshell.
This model is very late for me, but i do have an all-white pre-production with the earlier base (which is why I thought there were baseplate detail differences). I have compared the two bodies and can find no differences whatsoever.

I think we need answers to the following questions:
- If this was latterly common practice at Lesney, why do we not see more of them? (I have only ever seen plastic bodies for the American 'big rigs'.) What I do not understand is that, if these are supposed to be test shots, why do we see so many metal pre-productions? Why not have every development model in plastic?
- At what point in the production process are these plastic bodies moulded? Is it perhaps right at the end, just before the tooling is case hardened? If so, why bother? The tooling has already churned out multiple metal pre-production bodies, so why not just one more?

[GHOSTHUNTER]

So your latest comments are leading us to think this is almost certainly a Matchbox product but from which department remains questionable at the moment and your current questions are going to take some time to find the answers to.

Ghosthunter.

[Idris]

So your latest comments are leading us to think this is almost certainly a Matchbox product but from which department remains questionable at the moment and your current questions are going to take some time to find the answers to.

Looking at it, I am sure that the body has been moulded in the Lesney tooling and I saw something very similar at Philip Bowdidge's.
Other than that, it's anyone's guess!

[Idris]

Indulge me, and let me ' do a Mick' and have a flight of fancy.
The only plastic Matchbox bodies I have seen are for the American 'Big Rigs'. Could it be they they were not tooling test shots, but trials for an all-plastic range of models, the Convoys perhaps? This model must date from around the time that Lesney started getting into financial difficulties.
Can we add 2 and 2 together without making 5?

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Well, enything is/was considered by the big Three toy companies as many plastic trials have been found from Mecanno for the Dinky Toys range. Mettoy owned their own plastic injection company and while I can not think of any actual plastic Corgi items off the top of my head, They surely were not that far behind Dinky in looking at a range of more basic (cheaper!) constructed models.

The time-line for that particular truck could easily have been disrupted by the consideration of a plastic version as the sales team and/or R&D were looking to save costs by borrowing a Second set of moulds (tooling sets) for moulding a few bodies in plastic. I say a Second set because it is becoming increasingly apparant more than the single set of tools for many of the models do in fact exist hence the minor casting differences many of the forum's members are finding.

Were the earlier 'GT Series' made predominately of plastic baseplates and opaque plastic glazing with only the main body still made of metal?

Ghosthunter.

[Idris]

How many other 1-75 models of this era had plastic baseplates? Was it just the American tractor units?

[Idris]

I say a Second set because it is becoming increasingly apparant more than the single set of tools for many of the models do in fact exist hence the minor casting differences many of the forum's members are finding.

Paired tooling was introduced comparatively early on. By the end of the RW era, some models seems to have had (as many as four sets of tooling in simultaneous operation.

[ChFalkensteiner]

Were the earlier 'GT Series' made predominately of plastic baseplates and opaque plastic glazing with only the main body still made of metal?

If this refers to the Super GT series: yes, those models have metal bodies with all other parts (except axles, of course) made of plastic. The Super GT series was made from 1986 to 1990 (in England until mid-1987, later in China) and used twenty different reworked (simplified) moulds originating from the 1970s MB Miniatures range.

I do not think, however, that it has any connection with the subject of this thread, which was probably made a few years earlier (if it was made at the factory).