Matchbox cars were my favorite toys when I was gro…
Matchbox cars were my favorite toys when I was growing up in the 70’s. Oh, sure, Hotwheels were nice, but they tended toward the extravagant, whereas I just wanted normal cars, the kind you’d see in driveways, to play with, paint, pry the tops off, and drown roly-poly bugs in.
So I was surprised and pleased to come across this site, which features a great deal of my car collection at the time. I distinctly remember buying the green ’79 Couger Villager at the intentionally crumbly white Best store in Houston and, greatly pleased with the purchase, babbling to my parents and my brother as we walked back to our car in the parking lot on a spotless sunny day, “I need more big cars in my collection. I already have too many compact models.” I lusted after the ’79 candy apple-red Lincoln Continental pictured above for ages before saving up the $1.29 to buy it, whereupon I matched the color with melted candlewax to recreate headlight covers, a detail I felt that Matchbox had overlooked. I scraped off decals and pried out garnishes like the plastic motorcycles in the back of the Holden pickup (’77). One of my favorites was the ’76 BMW 3CSi, which got several coats of model paint “borrowed” from my brother as well as many trials-by-fire that left the green windows pretty much opaque. I got the ’75 Collector Case to keep the cars in, and built garages for them with Lincoln Logs, Legos and the remains of my hand-me-down erector set, along with a generous helping of backyard mud.
The cars, at least those that survived my playing, may still be around somewhere in Oklahoma, where my parents live now. Could even be worth something these days.