Another sharp Yatming copycat of a classic Tomica from their golden era; Lincoln Continental Mark IV

Following on the previous post about a copycat Yatming casting of a Cadillac Brougham, I thought I’d also feature this contemporary Yatming casting of a Lincoln Continental Mark IV, which again happens to be a copycat of the Tomica casting.  

Again, the competition is intense, with Yatming in their golden era taking on Tomica’s golden era casting.  Again, Yatming slightly loses.  

The difference in this case is that neither casting is quite as much of a favorite of mine as the Cadillac.  Also, Yatming loses by a slightly wider margin this time, as their casting comes off a bit more amateur-ish - slightly more clownish (especially with the Cannonball Run graphics!), just a bit more ham-handed than the smooth and elegant Tomica.  Note the shape of the opera window - oval for the Tomica, almost round for the Yatming.  

Regardless of the competition, both castings are winners, beautiful examples of a 1970s luxury car, and both with silky-soft suspensions…

Extremely rare Superfast teal Lincoln Continental

The Lincoln Continental is one of the best Matchbox castings ever done.  In real life the Lincoln was a big square car, and the die-cast version of it is correctly in scale, big and square, with beautiful metal detail in the grill and an opening trunk.  When introduced as a regular wheels car, it came in a slightly unfortunate teal (really Lesney...  teal?) or a less common (but more formal looking and hence desirable) dark blue.  When they converted it to Superfast spec, (with a new and beautiful olive-gold paint color, nice wheels and a super-soft suspension), the height of the car was raised to modern standards, taking a nice casting and elevating it (pun intended) to one of the nicest castings in all of Matchbox land...

But as pretty and great as the olive gold transitional car is, don't you kind of wish you could have ALSO had the superfast in the original dark blue or teal colors...?   In short, don't you wish that you had the teal car pictured here...?!?

But you won't find this car easily.  It's listed in the variations listing of my matchbox books by Charlie Mack (The Big Book of Superfast Matchbox Toys) as being worth $2000+ (and that was 10 years ago...).

So did I buy this one for $2000?   No, it's a fake.  A simple baseplate swap... 

I had a beat-up transitional gold car that was missing its trunk lid.  I had a beat up teal regular wheels car, that was so beaten up that I didn't value it.  I combined the body of the regular wheels car with the baseplate of the missing-trunk-superfast car, and suddenly, I had the one-of-a-kind car that I'd always wanted... 

Actually, I like that it is so beaten up.  It looks legitimate that way, as if its a surviving car, un-restored, parked outside on the streets and subject to the rain and sun... 

Only the baseplate shows the truth, the drilled-out rivets a gaping hole and testament to its non-legitimacy...