It was my Holy Grail for years, bought a MIB for relatively cheap ($25 to $50) in the mid 1980s, then sold it when I lost interest in collecting and couldn't justify owning such a valuable model. I'm liking the tribute models, though! Especially the current blue one, which I guess is a nod to the blue artist's rendering on the early regular wheel boxes. I REALLY wish I had the red one in the 1970s growing up. I didn't know of the models existence until a school friend told me he had seen one for sale at a garage sale, and then drew a picture of the front end. I was crushed when I saw that classic Pontiac stacked headlamp / split grille. Yeah, I got a mint red one later, but it wasn't the same as if I had got it before 12 years old. (What's with purple Pontiacs? The Jet Wheels convertible by AMT is my current Holy Grail. Never knew it existed until recently.)

Yes, these Pontiacs were very, very cool. Opening doors was so great...LOL
I also found some old newspaper advertisements I had cut out to keep with my little catalogs MB used to provide. After I found my collection, I continued looking for the catalogs.





I also found this article in a magazine sometime around 1990 or so...

I remember some of those catalog covers, especially the first one I got, which was the 1978-79 with the brown Porsche Turbo on it (and the truck and space shuttle). I think that is the one had the list at the back of all the cars Matchbox made until that point. I studied that at bedtime and dreamed about what some of those cars looked like (there were no pics with the list). That long lost catalog was just in tatters I looked it over so often. I was fortunate in that circa 1977, a local drug store had a tiny assortment of NOS regular wheels, and I did get the fantastic 1964 Lincoln in mint green, and LOVED that opening trunk!!! That was a masterpiece. Real men would drive a great big expensive car like that, and many of the new 1/64 models released during my 1970s childhood were outlandish....only around 1978 did things start to normalize with Matchbox, like the 1978 Cougar Villager.

I hope more tribute models in the Matchbox Plus / Moving Parts series come along, especially that #31 Lincoln , and the red #65 Jaguar Mark II 3.8-litre with opening hood ...a gift from Santa.

I found that old No 22 SF with box 4 years ago, I think I paid $15.

And I have every year catolog from 1968-1989. The early years are very high in price these days. I think I have that article as well. Cool stuff.

Neat little baseball related ad for Matchbox, I like how some of the models shown are not the colors they were ever issued in.

I am amazed how prices have gone up for the purple SF version and it isn't really a rare model.