Lorry (Bantam bottle truck)

metal alloy

Models of Yesteryear
In 1956 Lesney’s created a series of old fashioned vehicles targeted at adult collectors.

Lesney toys had always represented vehicles commonly seen on the roads of Britain, but never classic cars of previous eras. In 1956 the Models of Yesteryear range was introduced to fill this gap in the market. Jack Odell coined the term ‘Yesteryear’ to describe the models; which has now become a part of every day vocabulary.

The range was based on vehicles manufactured before 1945 and had the same numbering system as the 1-75 range. It took off with Model T-Ford – a car everyone recognised as a design classic.

In 1964 Lesney’s introduced a range of gift sets including ash trays, pen sets and cigarette boxes. They featured gold-plated and silver finished Models of Yesteryear and were popular as corporate gifts and also given to Lesney’s staff at special occasions.

These cars have been kindly loaned to Hackney Museum by Violet Szczepanski and the Clements Family in memory of Thomas Richard Clements.

Coronation Coach
In 1951, Lesney’s started a project to make a souvenir model of the State Coach that would be used by the King and Queen in a procession for the Festival of Britain.

Two hundred coaches were made before production stopped at the outbreak of the Korean War due to a government ban on using zinc for toy manufacturing. In 1953, after the death of King George VI, Lesney’s decided to use the moulds for the toy ahead of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The king was cut-out from the knees up from the original mould and 33,000 large Coronation Coaches were produced. At this point, Lesney’s came up with the idea of making a miniature of this model. The public loved the toy and one million models were sold.

These items have been kindly loaned to Hackney Museum by David Flack and Gary Galvin.

1-75 Range
After the success of the miniature Coronation Coach, Lesney’s started making miniatures of the industrial vehicles that they had already produced.

At the same time. Jack Odell’s daughter was only allowed to bring items to school small enough to fit into a matchbox, so Odell combined the two ideas by designing a miniature toy that could fit into a matchbox.

This launched the 1-75 range of Matchbox cars. The first car was the Aveling Road Roller in 1953, seen in the display with a copy of the original large scale model it was based on. The numbering system followed the order in which the cars were made. When they came to number 76, they stopped adding more numbers and started to replace the original models with new ones. This constantly refreshed the range with new colours, car types and added features such as opening car boots and doors. The whole range was displayed in shops on a presentation stand.

In 1969, Mattel came out with a range of miniature cars that had low friction wheels that could speed down a track. Lesney Products soon came up with their competitor and from 1970, all new models sported the new Superfast wheels.

These items have been kindly loaned to Hackney Museum by Nick & Debbie Jones, Gary Galvin and Keith D’Souza.