What did I do ? I did what any DLMer do, I opened my blister to enjoy my little car, photograph it, and display it. But …
The AMC Matador is a car I strictly don’t know anything about, and I don’t specially care about. But I’m always in for a nice minicar, and discover something automotive related. Plus, the AMC brand is always interesting cause the cars were so different, sometimes ugly, and in the end rare in miniature. So, seeing Greenlight announcements, I was in to get a Matador model. I love to have new molds, I love big boats, and some Hot Pursuit liveries. Perfect match. I order my car on eBay on a french seller I already wrote about (Quinazland).

I opened it (the case opening is here, and you can see the car still in the blister), and then I realized something was wrong. Something was wrong on the windshield. “NOT FOR SALE”. What ? Come again ? I absolutely did not take notice of that in the blister with the AMOUNT of plastic a Greenlight model gets. And as I said, I open everything, cause in the end nothing is rare, and I don’t collect plastic. But in this case … I really wonder if would have opened it if I had known …

The Matador I get is a pre-production model, that ended up in the mainline, in a standard packaging. See the photos. There is nothing faked in this post and about what I’m writing.
The clues are the latter : “Not for sale” on the windshield, the holes on the roof near the light bar, and the light bar itself. See how it sits too high, and those ugly holes.



So now that it is opened, it is in my Greenlight display. You can insult me in the comments, I’m ready. It is surely a very special car in my collection. Be sure I would never have paid any € more than what I have paid for it (8€), cause I’m not a deep Greenlight collector, and I bought an ordinary Matador ! I like it for it’s exoticism, I don’t like the holes on the roof, but it’s fine. Here is a pic of the “standard” Matador as it should be :






That is a very strange story, but I assure once again, true, of a pre-production model that ended up in a standard blister. Surely it won’t happen again in my diecast collector’s life.
Cheers!

@Willdiecast
I would have done the same thing with a Matchbox car, so no complaints from me.
Unique catch! The wheels are also different on the normal release, so that definitely is like the one in the pre-production pictures.