Foreign ProductionForeign | Copies | Packaging
The folks at Mattel have occasionally made cars in for markets other than the United States. Sometimes they are not made in the normal Mattel plants and can have exclusive cars and colors. In the redline era, some of the Hot Wheels molds ended up being reused by a company named "Muky" in Argentina. These models are not Mattel produced, but do look very familiar to redline collectors. There are many foreign language package variations from the Redline era. I do not own much of those, but I will publish them as I get them! In the mid seventies, cars were repackaged for Japan in boxes similar to Matchbox packaging which have become very collectable. There are no differences with the actual cars, but they were produced right at the end of the redline era, so some are redlines, some are flying colors blackballs. They only ran for a year or two, Starting in 1979, Mattel packaged cars in Mebetoys boxes (again, similar to Matchbox models). Mattel had partnered with Mebetoys to create the Gran Toros line of 1:43 scale cars in the early seventies and came back to them for distribution of the cars, which were sold in European toy stores. These ran for about two years as well. In the mid 80's, Mattel produced cars in Mexico for the Mexican market, in France for the the European Market (and Canada), and in Macau for the European market. In the 90's, many cars, including castings not sold in the US, were made by Mattel under the Leo Toys label in India. Towards the end of this production, some of the India castings made it into the US mainline offerings, but most did not. To this day more LEO variations are found almost every week, showing up on Ebay and selling at pretty impressive prices! |
LEO's made in India in the 80's and 90's
Made in France for Europe and Canada, 80's
Made in Mexico for Mexico stores.
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