After our look at the Matchbox Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser earlier this week, a few of you asked about other Japanese cars done by Matchbox. There are actually quite a few.
The Lamley Matchbox collection is almost all Mattel-era models, and there are very few Japanese nostalgics, at least by the 25-years or older standard. From our count, the Land Cruiser and Toyota 4Runner are the only two that qualify.
But there are a ton of other Japanese car castings, and almost all of them are worth collecting.
To help you see a few, I took five minutes to rummage through the collection and grab every Matchbox Japanese car I saw. Then I threw them into the Lamley studio and took one shot each. Not every casting is represented (the Scion Xb comes to mind), and neither is every version of the castings I do show. But you should get the idea.
We would love to know what castings you collect, or which versions you want. Let us know. In the meantime, hear are some shortcuts to the ebay listings of models you might be interested in. Enjoy:
Matchbox Toyota
Matchbox Nissan
Matchbox Honda
Matchbox Mitsubishi
Matchbox Mazda
Matchbox Lexus
Matchbox Infiniti
Matchbox Subaru
Can you name all of these?
And the racing Honda Motorbike, Mazda RX 500, a couple of Supras, Celica, RX7, ZX 280s. The Japanese issued nos 76, 77 etc?
When one starts to think they've done quite a few. Chris
Toyota Supra Premiere!
Are the gold and yellow Nissan Z's Matchbox? They look like Maisto with those wheels, otherwise there's a bunch of these I wouldn't mind and I'm not much of a JDM fan.
some older matchboxes that are jdm that i remember from my head (but mostly are the macau-then tyco era)
-mazda rx7 FD
-mazda rx7 sa22
-toyota mr2 aw11
-toyota supra mk4
-toyota celica supra (mk3)
-datsun 280
-datsun 260
-nissan 300zx z31
-nissan 300zx z32
leznah0811 (instagram)
yes they are Matchbox on, not rather nice weheels
Mate, not all of these cars are Japanese. Infiniti and Lexus are American, not Japanese. In the same way that the Volkswagen SP2 and Brasilia are Brazilian rather than German. Anyway, the cars from top to bottom :-
1) Nissan Cube
2) Toyota 4Runner
3) Nissan 350Z
4) Mitsubishi L200 Triton
5) Honda Insight
6) Toyota Tacoma
7) Subaru Impreza WRX Police car
8) Toyota Prius
9) Infiniti G37 Coupe
10) Honda Ridgeline
11) Lexus GS430
12) Mazda 2
13) Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X Police car
14) Honda Civic Type-R
My favorite of the lot is the Subaru. I love the fact that Matchbox decided to do this specific generation of the WRX and I also like that they realistically made it a police car. But I hate that very fact as well. I would love to see this as a standard civilian car, especially in the signature Subaru blue with gold wheels (would be like a laser blast through the line-up). I'm ready to bet ANY amount of money that it would be a complete winner in everybody's book. I hope matchbox is listening and my prayers would come true someday. All they need to do is remove the light bar and thats it. Nothing else. The rest of the casting is very, very perfect as it is. Okay now, too much Subaru talk. About the other cars, I like the Mitsubishi (insert same reasons as the WRX), especially the UK police version, and the Nissan 350Z, Mitsubishi Triton, Honda Civic Type-R and Mazda 2. All of these are great castings and the 350Z and Mazda need to be brought back to the line-up someday after some time off. Anyway, great photos and happy JCCS week!
Thank you, just never seen style before on Matchbox cars.
Hey where that infiniti G37 come from?
The Triton ute is a hidden gem
I would like to see again old japanese gems such as mitsubishi spyder, mazda rx-7,toyota supra and the nissan 300zx both z31 and z32
The blue lexus is the best japanese car matchbox made. Great body, design, color and the features of the blue gs430. Well done!!!
The best Japanese car matchbox ever made is the blue Lexus gs430 sedan. Beautiful body design, the blue color really suits the car well and the body looks amazing!!!! Well done.