Matchbox/Lesney 70b; Ford Grit Spreading Truck

Several unanswered questions here.- why did the one from my childhood (on the left below) escape the dead hand of the toy-box re-painter? What happened to the broken wheel? and didn't it have a shut-off mechanism for the grit?

Through the fog of ages a few answers are starting to appear. I think I remember that the wheel was broken when I got it, this split wheel is not uncommon on black plastic wheels Matchboxes. I remember also trying to spend my pocket money on the Corsair with the boat on the roof and finding it had the same problem and the man in the toyshop didn't have any more Corsairs - so I had to leave it, I also I have a Jeep Wagoneer with the same problem. However I also remember we had a new floor in the granary on our farm at about the same time I got this toy. Brand new pine tongue and groove planks making a smooth new floor. We also has a pile of sand in the yard which had been washed by rain and bleached by the sun so that it had a crust of very fine dry sand. This must have been the school summer holidays, as I had loads of time on my hands and the granary was empty, the sacks of barley would come in in September when the stooks went to the threshing machine.

I remember laying out an intricate pattern of roadways on the granary floor with the fine sand from the pile in the yard using this wagon. It took days, but in the end I did it and there were little roads laid out in fine sand all over the granary floor. I also remember having to nurse that broken wheel right through the process. The year was probably 1968. All over the world that summer momentous things were happening in Vietnam, Prague, Paris, San Francisco and London. I was making sand roads with this grit lorry in a granary on a farm in Lancashire.

The Ford Grit Spreader on the D1000 chassis was released as a regular wheels model in 1966, for most of its run it had a red cab and a primrose yellow hopper back. There are some with the bright (lemon) yellow back as found on the later Superfast model and these will attract a premium as they are less common. In 1970 it was converted to Superfast wheels and deleted the year after. In the Superfast version five spoke wheels are harder to find than four spoke.

Matchbox/Lesney 70b; Ford Grit Spreading Truck; Red & Primrose Yellow, BPW (From my childhood toybox)	Matchbox/Lesney 70b; Ford Grit Spreading Truck; Red & Primrose Yellow, BPW	Matchbox/Lesney 70b; Ford Grit Spreading Truck; Red, Lemon Yellow Back, BPW	Matchbox/Lesney 70b; Ford Grit Spreading Truck; Red/yellow, 5 Spoke Wheels Superfast

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Last Edit: 12/06/2024		Page Added 07/03/2021