MY MATCHBOX MOTORWAY: A BIRTHDAY MEGA-SPECIAL BY KEVIN D

My childhood was dominated by tvsf, the worlds of Gerry Anderson, Star Trek etc. There is remarkably little difference in my adult life now I come to think of it.

Anyway, leaving aside that sociological treatise for the moment, there were some non-space toys in my life. 

One that stands out in my mind is the Matchbox Motorway. I can vividly remember setting it up on my bedroom floor and it would've been late 60's. I have no idea why I suddenly wanted one again in 2021 but I did. You can't reclaim your youth but it is still worth trying!

So, grab the moment, and the mobile phone and get onto ebay. It didn't take long to find one that looked reasonably complete and I took a chance on it.

It arrived and I was delighted to discover that it was all there. I set it up, cobbled together a power supply (my childhood one had run on batteries that I suspect no longer exist!). Astoundingly, after all this time, it ran immediately.

I was ridiculously pleased to watch cars run around on it.

The beauty of the design of this toy is that it is not a race track (although you could use it as one). The two lanes can carry lots of cars and can go in opposite directions, pretty much like a motorway but without miles of restrictions so that two guys in hi-vis jackets can paint 6 inches of white line.

The other clever thing is that ordinary matchbox cars can run on it. No electricity powers the cars, instead the motors drive two long, continuous springs that run in slots in the road bed. The cars have plastic pegs stuck on their undersides that slot into the gaps between spring coils. You can still find new, unused boxes of pegs to this day and I even got a power unit for it.

Brilliant to see it going again but what really mystifies me is that whilst all my other childhood toys seem small now, this still seems huge!

Having got the toy up and running, I thought I'd do some photos of it in action. My next thought was that it would be great to reproduce the brilliant artwork on the box lid. Great idea but it meant finding 12 specific Matchbox cars. 

Many of them I'd had as a kid so I'd be happy to own them again. The ever helpful Wotan donated some too. Trouble was, I don't think the cars were always available in the colours shown. Customising was going to happen. On the plus side, I could get cheap, battered ones!

Here is an example of what I needed to do. The car I'd obtained was blue and rough. I drilled out the one rivet that held it together and got it into its parts. I primed the body with white primer and then sprayed it red.

The finish was not shiny enough so then I brush painted some gloss enamel varnish onto it. I put it all back together and superglue was enough to hold it where the rivet had been. Not a bad result, 1 down, 11 to go.

I then finally managed to put together the 12 vehicles seen on the box lid.

This is the result.

and here it is all moving on a short video.

The beauty of the Matchbox Motorway system is that it doesn't just work for Matchbox toys. Any suitably sized vehicle will do. Here is a Corgi Juniors Batmobile kindly donated by Wotan.

Holy flexibility!

Happy Bloggiversary,

Kevin D

UK