Matchbox: The Universal Years

Dan's Matchbox Picture Pages

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The Universal Years
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In June of 1982, Lesney Products, the original maker of Matchbox toys, went bankrupt. Lesney was reformed as Matchbox Toys Ltd. and proceeded to search for a buyer. It was the end of an era.

Mattel was interested in Matchbox even then, but it was Universal Toys that purchased the company in September of 1982.

Production was moved from England to Macau, and I'm sure the Matchbox collectors of the day were worried that the venerable Matchbox name would now be attached to cheap, Asian produced toys.

However, in my opinion, Universal Toys carried on the Lesney tradition. The marketing of the cars once again focused on realism and detail.

The castings produced by Universal between about 1985 and 1991 are some of the nicest Matchboxes of any era. These are the cars that got me into collecting as an adult in 1987. I only wish I had purchased more of the models and variations at that time. Here are some cars from the Universal years that I have in my collection. Hope you enjoy them!

Click on the thumbnails to see more about each model.

Rolls-Royce
Silver Spirit
Oldsmobile Aerotech