Impression: The offshore Matchbox 600 SEL

As a boy born from the early 90s, Matchbox toys are inseparable. One of the flashiest cars out there, the Matchbox 1/67 600 SEL was launched in 1992, yet in the country where the toy was made, I didn’t know it existed until 2006.

Matchbox and me

My first impressions of automobiles are a pair of muscle cars, a yellow 1974 Dodge Challenger and a blue 1973 Ford Mustang, they had peeling paint and were a gift from my dad to my cousin who was 5 years older than me. After I was born, my cousin gave us back the pair of toy cars, and we spent a lot of time together on the sheets.

I learned many years later that they were both Matchbox. Shopping malls in the 1990s were full of these blue-boxed toy cars, but no one called them Matchbox, but Universal. All of this cannot leave a key figure, David Yeh, who was born in Shanghai in 1929. At the age of 16, he went to Hong Kong. His Universal Toys bought Matchbox Toys Ltd. from the bankrupt Lesney in 1982 after years of fighting in the toy industry.

According to Yeh’s recollection, he always wanted to return to Shanghai to do business, so after acquiring the Matchbox brand, he co-founded Shanghai Universal Toys Co, Ltd (SUTC) with several state-owned enterprises and banks in Shanghai in 1983, Universal Matchbox Group holds 35% of the shares and the contract period is 20 years. The company produces and sells Matchbox die-cast toy cars and is Matchbox’s second factory after leaving the UK, after Macau.

Since English wasn’t popular yet, people didn’t read “Matchbox”, and “Universal” in Chinese became the only words that can be understood as a brand. Actually as a kid, no one told me what a Universal is either, I just knew that these toy cars with rectangular logo stamped on the bottom were more refined and exotic than others, until one day they suddenly disappeared from my world.

I was 7 years old in 2000 and was about to enter elementary school. The elders in family thought that toy cars are kindergarten childish objects, and I should draw a clear line with them. So before school, enrollment, my aunt took me to the mall to pick out some Matchbox one last time, but they didn’t last long. When we moved 3 years later, all the toys were thrown away as “worthless childish items”. Well, another 2 years later, I had some pocket money in 6th grade, they won’t pay for the larger scale models, and I didn’t have the patience to save, so I thought about Matchbox, strangely they disappeared from the store.

The fact is that the joint venture SUTC was dissolved in 2004 due to the expiration of the contract (1984-2004), the investor had no intention of continuing to operate, and the production and sales of toys stopped. It’s not a pity because continuing to produce toys in 21st century Shanghai is not a good idea. As early as 1992, Universal sold Matchbox to TYCO, and in 1997 TYCO was sold to Mattel. But luckily, by 2004 SUTC has always had orders from Mattel. Simply put, in the early days, SUTC was tied to Matchbox because of the capital from Universal. But then Universal sold Matchbox, and SUTC and Matchbox became a dispensable foundry relationship. Since 1998 SUTC barely produced Matchbox anymore, but Hot Wheels. So when SUTC closed in 2004, sales of the dead stock stopped immediately.

The MB234

Back to 1991, the new S-class 140 was unveiled in Genf 1991 in March, and it was destined to be one of the hot shot of 1991. The Matchbox team responded quickly, they decided to add the 600 SEL to the next year 1-75 series. Soon the R&D team in UK made a resin prototype based on the photos they got. At this time, it is a resin sample, the upper part of the body is silver, the lower part is gray, and there are black stripes on the side of the body. The steel-wheel looking 8-dot wheel is arranged for smaller-scale passenger vehicles by Matchbox.

In May 1992, TYCO acquired Universal Matchbox Group Ltd at cost of $135 million. As a US company, TYCO began to lean towards the US market, and launched the 1993 US market catalog immediately after the acquisition. The 600 SL appeared in the 38th slot, which is the 600 SEL we talked about. Not sure if this is a typo, 600 SL is a rather funky name. The real 600 SL (R 129) was introduced in September 1992 and it’s totally different vehicle. Regardless, the catalog is still filled by resin samples, one year has passed since the 1992 catalog, still no assembled die-cast samples.

A few years ago I acquired a same resin sample as the one in 1993 US catalog, the difference from the 1992 sample is that there is no black stripe on the side.

^{The color of this prototype appears to be 744 Brilliant Silver Metallic, without the interior and chassis details.}

Interestingly, the sample has opposite fuel door position to the real car. perhaps because the main Matchbox R&D team was still in the UK at the time, they decided to make the RHD version by mirroring the position of the fuel door from passenger’s side to the driver’s side before seeing the actual RHD model. Fuel door on the LHD version is on the passenger side. But this is a wrong prediction, the position of the steering column does not change the position of the fuel door.

The 1993 ROW catalog released in the end of 1992 finally appeared die-casting products, die-casting number MB234. Soon it started selling in the US and ROW market with number 38 and 39. Compared to the prototype, it had a position-revised fuel door, the final product is LHD. And some modifications to the outlines.

In terms of paint, I think the MB234 has received special treatment from the manufacturer. First they chose silver, which makes the headlights ambiguous, in a way the headlights could be read as silver on a car. The presence of the headlights is confirmed by the turn signals, which are especially accentuated with orange paint. From a distance, it seems that the headlights are also painted, and the taillights are also expressed in red paint. This is very rare in the toy car industry that uses reduced process control costs, even Matchbox.

Major flaws locates on the chassis. First there’s a circular protrusion below the trunk that appears to be the spare wheel housing. It’s a pity that the 140’s spare wheel housing is not round and is closer to the center. The critical part is the exhaust pipe, there are two catalytic converters and pipes visible which fits the V12. But at the front, the driver’s side front pipe goes around the bottom of the engine to the passenger’s side. On V12, the front pipes are symmetrical. Did they remove one side to leave space for writing Matchbox logo on the bottom? Yes and no.

These exhaust pipes are V8-design, not part of the 600 SEL. The V12 pipe has 2 headers each side, while the V8 only has one header on the co-driver side. This error remind me another error made by Daimler AG themselves. In the press kit from Genf 1991, there is a technical illustrations booklet.

One thing for sure is Daimler AG never released any underbody photo of V8 model, the Matchbox R&D team could have inspected a real 500 SEL. The reason of such mistake cannot be properly revealed so far. However, if the correct exhaust outline stamped to the chassis, there would be no space to put the Matchbox logo.

The license plate is 600SEL, the space between 600 and SEL is missing here, for authenticity it does matter. Even so, the lettering is from the original Mercedes-Benz. The LHD and wide license plate bracket make this 600 SEL distinctly Euro-spec.

The interior doesn’t have much readable information, but the pattern of seats are used with velour. And according to the outline of rear seat branch, it’s a four-seater. This will help to reveal which car was used as reference by Matchbox. Due to the fuel door error of the resin sample, it can be deduced that the Matchbox is not referring to a real RHD car, that is, from the period when no RHD pictures are available. The UK-based Matchbox R&D team is not automotive journalists. Although several UK-spec press photos were given at the UK market premiere held in Vienna and London, they were not forwarded by automotive magazines. It is difficult for Matchbox who was not invited to find these photos.

The velour seat was seen as a key since it rarely appears even in press photos. Exactly, in the 600 SEL scope, only some of the cars that tested at Cannes were equipped with velour trim and were photographed by the journalists. I checked the archive for a car that has been reviewed by the British presses, and it is most likely the S-KV 9025 (#000231). It was published in the AUTOCAR & Motor magazine. Here is another error from the AUTOCAR & Motor.

In the US, the name on the bubble card is neither the correct 600 SEL nor the previously odd 600 SL, it is now “600S”. It’s a somewhat crazy name, and I can’t imagine if it was influenced by Mercedes-Benz changing the 600 SEL to the S 600 in July 1993, it looks like that was a later event.

I tend to interpret it as: they cut off the E and L because the name was too long on card, but there is still a blank space after the S on the card so this speculation is not entirely convincing. It is also worth noting that Kelley Blue Book once referred to the 1994 S-class as 600 S instead of S 600, and Matchbox is likely influenced by Kelley Blue Book.

According to bamca.org, the MB234 appeared in a separate series MOTOR SHOW in September 1993. In this series, 2 cars of each brand go on sale with a stand, the ones on the Mercedes stand are 600 SEL and 500 SL – why only the US market can’t provide the correct designation? MB234 gets a second color here, though I’m having a hard time defining what it is. In layman’s terms, it can be described as Brown Metallic. If you must choose one from the 140 color list, I tend to 441 Impala. I don’t know why the they chose this color, as the color itself isn’t popular.

The MB234 was absent from the 1994 Matchbox catalogue, with the Corvette Stingray taking its place at number 38. This phenomenon was unusual in the past because the tool was only 2 years old. But this is how TYCO treats the 1-75 series, more complex toys especially with moving parts are removed or canceled. And because TYCO moved more of its business to the US, some European cars that were not sold well in the US were also replaced by Americans. Universal, a Hong Kong company, still keeps its R&D team in the UK, producing both European and American cars, sometimes even offering exclusive models for the European market.

This doesn’t mean that MB234 is coming to an end. In 1996, Matchbox launched PREMIERE COLLECTION WORLD CLASS, which is an upgraded version of WORLD CLASS. WORLD CLASS is an authentically detailed limited-edition collection of some of the world’s finest sports cars and exotic cars, and although it was launched from 1989 to 1995, the 600 SEL never came. A significant improvement of the new PREMIERE COLLECTION is the interior. In the past, WORLD CLASS had a chrome-plated windshield, and only convertible cars and cars without side windows leaked interior. The PREMIERE COLLECTION WORLD CLASS present the car in its entirety and offers chrome-plated wheels with rubber tyre, limited to 25,000 pieces.

At this time, the 140 in US market corresponds to the model year 1996. Although it is already a facelift, this color combination still exists. Note that Matchbox did not upgrade the toy to a facelift, at least the orange turn signal is retained. Of course, the name of the 600 SEL did not change to the S 600 either. Talking about the name, the US consumer can’t have correct one. This time the name on the box is “600 SL”, it’s the name in 1993 US catalog, but not the “600 S” used on previous US bubble cards. I wouldn’t say they were playing any copyright game because both number plates on the toy are clearly 600 SEL. Whoever designed the US cards must be struggling to understand why the 600 SEL became S 600.

The second blue version appears to be a Matchbox homemade blue. Matchbox picking their own color rather than picking one from the Mercedes palette, and the darker lower gray is carried over. From here on, the colors in this series gets random.

There is no need to paint the body silver now, as specially prepared gray paint will accentuate the headlights; the orange turn signals are retained instead of turning into US-spec yellow. At the rear, the left and right taillights get full paint, but only the left and right sides of the bottom reflector strip remain, possibly due to technical difficulties caused by the light strip being too narrow. A notable modification to this casting is that the “600SEL” on the front and rear license plates have been erased and the new numbers are painted on. Seats are painted in two-tone. Although the Velour seats are not available in two-tone colors, and such colors are not available on leather.

^{On the body, the door handles are painted silver, probably to differentiate it from the black body, but the real car’s door handles are supposed to be black and only the trim inside is chromed.}

The rubberized chrome wheels that are exclusive to the series are actually a breaker for the authenticity of this toy. The PREMIERE COLLECTION full lines equipped GOODYEAR EAGLE, apparently GOODYEAR collaborated with the series. These tires are made for racing events in US in real world and in the toy scope it’s a generic part and they were originally designed for muscle cars with smaller body sizes in larger scale. GOODYEAR never became the factory tire supplier for the 140.

From the perspective of the toy, considering that this is an 8+ toy and there is no essential difference from the 3+ regular Matchbox toy, I think it is enough to attract kids. At least I was very excited when I first heard about the series, and yes it worked, I collected a lot.

According to bamca.org, although the green one’s lot number 34360 is earlier than the black 34361, the green 600 SEL was actually produced after the black one in December 1996. This would explain why the green underbody is also gray. The green car in the ROW catalog obviously has a light green lower part, and I can map that color combination to 249 Spruce Green and 6856 Tropical Green.

ROW’s WORLD CLASS is also limited to 25,000 pieces. At the same time, the German market has exclusive packaging. The green MB234 in Germany are only sold directly in black boxes without a bubble card. A question that arises here is that the German box says it limited to 12,000 pieces, I don’t know if it is part of the 25,000, because ROW’s green is rarer than any other color in the US. I doubt if 25,000 of these toys were produced for real, let alone 37,000.

In 1996, Matchbox launched SELECT CLASS, which also belongs to PREMIERE COLLECTION. The difference from WORLD CLASS is the SELECT CLASS is only sold in shopping centers. The white 600 SEL was scheduled to be sold at Walmart as a Series 2, produced in January 1997 according to bamca.org.

Although the blue version is simply a color changer, the white version has three updates: 1.The license plate changed from white to blue, since the body is white. 2. Extra black paint around front windshield. 3. White paint on recerse light changed to silver.

^{Several changes were made to suit the white body.}

In February 1997, Matchbox launched The World’s Greatest Automakers Collection, which is an independent series, not Matchbox toys in the general sense, but brand Matchbox Collectibles, which is given the ULTRA label. The Matchbox Collectibles specializes in larger-scale, elaborate models that are not sold in supermarket or grocery stores, but are ordered by phone, fax and letter.

The set is shipped in a large box, each 2 cars are arranged into a fully protected foam box, the box covers are sorted as CPM-01M to CPM-06M. The 600 SEL and the Jaguar XJ6 are put into the CPM-01M, both of which are made in Thailand. Thankfully, for the first time the US market is getting the correct name for the product – 600 SEL, which appears on collector cards. This time it’s dark red, and again, I don’t think it’s from the Mercedes-Benz color library.

^{Compared with the previous PREMIERE COLLECTION, the lower part was changed from dark gray to light gray, maybe this would look better with red, but anyway, Mercedes-Benz never offered such color combination on the 140.}

The MB234 received 5-spoke wheels for the first time. Additional details on this version include the gray mirror on windshield, and the huge black trim under the rear windshield, which looks a bit like a roller blind. The dashboard is also painted to black. Compared with PREMIERE COLLECTION, the more advanced part of ULTRA is at the underbody. The underbody was painted, as was the powertrain, exhaust and even the spare wheel housing as well.

Also, the bottom of the ULTRA is secured with screws rather than rivets, which may have been part of the handcrafting that was mentioned repeatedly in the introduction. After all, as a collectible toy, it can indeed more satisfy collectors who haven’t checked out the real car.

I’m assuming these texts were provided or reviewed by MBUSA because of the mention of five-speed automatic transmission. On V12 models, five-speed (722.621) has only been available since model year 1996, which is a fresh information. Maybe MBUSA asked for this and didn’t want Matchbox to emphasize the obsolete four-speed. Of course since we are talking about 600 SEL, only four-speed is true, so not all texts in that CERTIFICATE of AUTHENTICITY is authentic.

In October 1997, JCPenney released several exclusive Matchbox sets in its Christmas catalog, including a set of 8 WORLD CLASS, the second Christmas set in the series.

This time it appears as light blue, although it is not a continuation of ULTRA version, but the overall details inherits the ULTRA instead the previous WORLD CLASS. Such as the 5-spoke wheels, painted mirror on windshield, roller blind, dashboard, and the light silver paint on lower body. An interesting update is the turn signal, now it’s the US-spec yellow rather than the previous orange. The number plate also changed to “LITIG8R”, looks like a real number. Although the set is claimed to be limited to 25,000 pieces like the previous WORLD CLASS, I certainly doubt that such a sales method can reach that number.

^{As the last version of MB234, the JCPenney version inherited craftsmanship from ULTRA.}

In November 1997, Mattel merged TYCO, the Matchbox changed ownership. Collectors are generally worried about the fate of Matchbox, because Mattel owns another famous toy car brand Hot Wheels. Hot Wheels is Matchbox’s biggest competitor, and there’s concern that Mattel will change or even cancel Matchbox. Mattel’s response: Matchboxes are not only here to stay, but even more collectible.

Actually it was lucky. When TYCO took over Matchbox in 1992, several under develop tools were canceled. Although the MB234 die-cast production was belatedly to appear in the catalog, it was eventually produced. If its development had been a bit later, all of these could be erased.

Why it’s offshore?

In 2006 I was in junior high, where there were computer classes and Internet access. Frankly speaking, PC was only used by me to play video games before, and now I would secretly look up Matchbox news in class because I was bored, I entered Chinese Matchbox fan forum, where I first met 600 SEL with a big shock. China is home to the Matchbox factory and has produced 600 SEL, why haven’t I seen or heard of it in over a dozen years? As a child I would see many novelty Matchbox at various friends’ houses, but never a 600 SEL.

According to bamca.org, the MB234 has been produced in China since September 1992. But according to the research by SUTC matchbox collectors, MB234 was never produced at SUTC, at least not in the catalog. But the bottom of some MB234 obviously has Made in China, where the hell it was made?

It all definitely ties in with David Yeh. After Universal acquired Matchbox in 1983, it first transferred all tools to a leased plant in Macau, and then established a second joint venture in Shanghai. The production scale in Shanghai is much smaller than in Macau, the most important factory. In the late 1980s, with the rise of labor and land prices, Universal decided to leave Macau.

People thought hundreds of tools would show up in Yeh’s hometown Shanghai, but in 1990 they went to Thailand. The June 1989 political event in Beijing led some influential Chinese authorities to believe that a market economy could undermine the leadership of the Communist Party. From then on, the whole country began to try to return to the planned economy and stop cooperating with foreign capital. Yeh may be tempted to move Matchbox to Shanghai, but with China and the U.S. rekindling hostilities, he’d better not sell toys made in the hostile country in the biggest market in the US.

After withdrawing from Macau, in 1991, among the 75 products, 46 tools were transferred to Thailand, and only 4 were transferred to Shanghai. There are some reasons why Yeh decided to forego producing toys in his hometown, one should be the political changes in China, Yeh started to lose faith of manufacturing toys in SUTC. His technical supervisor, Yong qiang Zhu, started Yongtai Toys in October 1990 in Zhuhai, next door to Macau (Macau is still controlled by Portugal, while Zhuhai is within China). Zhuhai’s land and labor are lower than those of Macau and Shanghai. What is important is that assets can be transferred quickly in the worst case. Note that officially Yongtai was a independant company and has nothing to do with Matchbox, so Yeh will not be suspected by Chinese authorities.

Although China re-expressed its friendliness to foreign capital in early 1992, Yeh has decided to leave the toy business anymore. In fact, he seemed already decided to sell Matchbox to a larger US company when he decided to move the main facility from Macau to Thailand instead of Shanghai in 1990.

According to Chinese Matchbox scholars, the MB234 was Made in China, but in the silent part, Yongtai. As a company outside of Universal Matchbox Group, Yongtai can only produce Matchbox toys and has no distribution rights. All Yongtai products must be purchased and packaged by SUTC before they can be sold in China. It wasn’t selected by SUTC for doemstic sales, they were all sold abroad. That’s why they were offshored and little known in China.

Since the appearance of Yongtai is related to Yeh’s willing, there can be some reasonable speculations. In 1990, some spare Matchbox tools were moved from Macau to Yongtai for production. These auxiliary sales products were not important to the Matchbox’s running, but confirmed Yongtai’s supplier position. Therefore, probably because Yeh hopes that Yongtai can continue to be the supplier of Matchbox, MB234 have chosen “Made in China” when making the casting, and it was shipped to Yongtai for production as the beginning of a new cooperation. But Yongtai eventually went downhill and only got a few orders after TYCO took over. According to bamca.org, the MB234 has been produced in Thailand since August 1993, only the earliest MB234 in silver were made in China.

I’m not sure on that. Since the toy itself doesn’t have any production date to refer to, I tried to collect different cards in the US market to figure out what could happened. In the last decade I filter thousands of these and finally deposit 6 versions. I’ve sorted them by evolutionary logic.

#1.Made in China. Stated 1990 Matchbox International’Ltd on the back, features “NEW COLOR” on the front.

#2.Made in China. Stated 1992 Matchbox International’Ltd on the back, features “NEW COLOR” on the front.

#3.Made in Thailand. Stated 1992 Matchbox International’Ltd on the back, features “NEW COLOR” on the front.

#4.Made in China. Stated 1992 Matchbox International’Ltd on the back, features “NEW MODEL” on the front.

#5.Made in Thailand. Stated 1993 Matchbox Toys (USA) Ltd, TYCO on the back, features none on the front.

#6.Made in Thailand. Stated 1993 Matchbox Toys (USA)Ltd, TYCO on the back, features none on the front.

Cards above shows Matchbox’s messy packaging management: the brand year itself is not a valid information, they conflict the brand evolution. I tend to disregard this information as they are generic text on the back of the card and don’t necessarily change as the toy changes. The logo on the front of the card itself is more helpful, because since TYCO acquired Matchbox, the logo in the US market has been updated, and the new logo must appear after the old logo.

The existence of #5 implied the card of China and Thailand version were likely printed at the same time. Both Made in China and Made in Thailand have two kinds of trademark packaging, which means the production in China wasn’t discontinued before the production in Thailand starts. If look at it this way, the cars could have been produced at the same time, too.

In the Matchbox world, the methodology for changing origins on chassis is usually to cut out the original lettering on the casting and engrave a new one. Rectangular traces of modification will therefore appear in the vicinity of the country of manufacture. But in the MB234 case, Made in Thailand has no trace of modification, which implies that it is an independent new casting besides the Made in China casting. This would add to the sense of assuming that MB234 was produced simultaneously in China and Thailand.

But if China and Thailand produce MB234 at the same time but use the same body casting, things will not be so simple. It sounds impossible, but similar situations exist. According to the memories of Xu, the former technical director of SUTC, since 1985, all the tooling of the Macau factory was transferred to SUTC die-casting. If what he says is true, there will be a play on words here: Although the parts are die-cast in China, since they are painted and assembled in Macau, the text on the chassis can still read “Made in Macau”.

My personal experience also cannot deny the history of SUTC producing “Made in Macau”. Around 1997-1998, my father and I went to the shopping mall and bought a Matchbox S-450 Streak Racing produced by SUTC and specialized in the Chinese local market, it’s a racing track with 2 free cars. What I got are two MB156 Ford Escort Cabriolet , blue and white. Acoording to bamca.org, they were built in Macau in 1986 and 1987, never made in China.

The car never appeared in SUTC’s catalogue, but if SUTC hadn’t produced them, they couldn’t have appeared in the local Chinese production. Moreover, 10 years have passed since 1987, and it does not make sense to import Made in Macau ten years ago. This confirms that SUTC not only produced castings for the Macau factory, but even completed complete production. Unless Yongtai’s factory documents can be obtained, it is an unsolved mystery that MB234 was produced at SUTC or Yongtai. Therefore, the origin at the bottom of the Matchbox is not entirely honest. If so, all deduction is meaningless, MB234 could be produced in any one of SUTC, Yongtai or Thailand.

Maybe I’ve gone too far, if they are honest, another story might be involved. In the original 1992, the MB234 was produced by Yongtai where everything was die-cast and assembled. After TYCO took over, Matchbox produced the new chassis “Made in Thailand”, but the bodies were still die-cast in Yongtai, and they were shipped to Thailand to reunite with the chassis. Due to the unsustainable number of bodywork, Thailand produces fewer numbers than China.

^{This post has some unfounded guesswork, and if you’re a Matchbox expert and disagree, I’d love your opinion.}