A few weeks ago, someone posted a link here to an estate auction website: ebth.com. I don’t remember who it was now, but whoever you are, thank you. I perused the site and came across quite a few things that piqued my interest. The most interesting though, being a pair of Matchbox cars.
When I call them Matchbox cars, that’s a very underwhelming and basic description. You’re probably thing a little 3" diecast you can pick up for a dollar at Walmart right? Well you’d be wrong. Matchbox has a very interesting history with doing lesser seen production runs in various scales over the years. The one most people think of are their 1/43 models know as King Size or Super Kings models. Less commonly known, Matchbox decided to mess around in the 1/24 scale for few brief years in the early nineties. That brings us to my post today: The Matchbox Masterclass Porsche 911 Carrera 2, in 1/24 scale.
Quick history lesson before we get to the rest of the pics. I must say, the details on this series were very hard to come by and I’m still missing a good bit of information here (I was only able to find on grainy picture of a brochure, and it was in German), so if anyone does actually know more about these, please let me know! Here’s what I do know so far though:
Sometime around 1992 / 1993, Matchbox decided to make a premium 1/24 scale series called the Matchbox Masterclass Collection. The series was only sold in the UK and Germany and was never seen stateside. It was originally planned to have a decent lineup of cars and run for a little while, but for whatever reason, it was canned after only three models came out; the first being this 964 chassis Porsche 911 Carrera 2. The second model was the Lamborghini Diablo and the third the Jaguar XJ220. The Diablo was the other car included in the auction, and will be featured in an upcoming Spaghetti Sunday post. There was no Jaguar in the auction however, so now I’m on the hunt to find one and complete the collection. Being that they were only sold for a year though, it appears production numbers are quite low, making this rare and hard to come by. So don’t expect the Jag to show up in my collection too soon, hahaha.
Anyways, history lesson out of the way. On to the pictures!
The first thing you’ll probably notice is that the side view mirror is missing. Somehow, between me holding it upside down briefly to unscrew the base from it’s box, the mirror fell off. I’m assuming this isn’t the first time that’s happened since it fell off so easily, but it’s something I can fix with a little superglue no problem.
Oooo, dat booty.
The business end.
Not the most detailed engine in the world, but it is 1/24 and made in the early nineties. We’ll let that slide.
It’s a little hard to see, but one of my favorite details here is how they have the PORSCHE text stamped in to the center of the steering wheel.
There we go. It looks much better from this angle, not seeing that a mirror is missing.... Also, the scenery helps.
Oh yeah, that rear 3/4's shot. That’s the one. Beautimus.
So I hope you guys enjoyed my introduction to the Masterclass Collection, and I look forward to showing off the Diablo in the near future. Happy Teutonic Tuesday everyone!!!!