One day I’ll get to the Riverside diecast show in California. At this point, I’d take a toy show anywhere (we’ve not got that far yet here in Calgary) but the Riverside Show – held outdoors this May – always looks like a lot of fun, if the pictures from social media are anything to go by.
Raymond (@raytard65 on Instagram) does some cool sales on IG and dug out a bunch of great models to sell at Riverside. When he posted some of what he was preparing ahead of the show, I noticed some awesome Matchbox Premiere stuff and we made a deal.
Convoys in particular are hard to find locally so those were the main draw, but I was also able to snag a Matchbox Collectibles GMC Wrecker that I knew a friend would want and a premium Mercedes.
Let’s start with the trucks. There are plenty of different Premiere Convoys out there, featuring premium wheels with rubber tires and lots of extra detailing over the regular Convoy trucks – so much so that the Premiere cabs have their own manufacturing (MB) numbers to distinguish them from the regular issues. There’s chrome aplenty and additional paint to highlight elements like the lights and horns.
(find Matchbox Premiere Rigs on eBay)
The three shown here are from the Matchbox Premiere Rigs of the American Highway Series 1, which was one of the final Tyco releases before Mattel took over in 1997. The other trucks in the series were a Mack Shell tanker, a Peterbilt truck with bulldozer cargo and a Kenworth Matchbox container truck.
I’d been after the blue Goodyear Ford Aeromax for a while, I just thought it looked great in that colour.
The second Aeromax is in the white of Midas auto repair shops. I have a couple of other Aeromax trucks so this one’s up for trade (with box!), if anyone’s interested.
My favourite of the three however is the Kenworth. The Mayflower deco is evocative of the old Lesney-era Mercedes Container Truck. Looks terrific, don’t you think?
Before we move on to the Mercedes, here’s a quick close-up of the Wrecker (MB188), which isn’t mine to open!
Like many Matchbox collectors, I’ve always liked this timeless casting. It’s nearly 35 years old now but was used as recently as 2019 and still looks fresh. This Texaco version from 2001 is a great one, but the whole Collectibles Texaco Collection is very cool so it’s well worth checking out the other models, like this Peterbilt tanker.
(find Matchbox Collectibles Texaco on eBay)
And so to the only car in the box, a Mercedes-Benz 600 SEL (MB234). I believe this was originally part of a JCPenney exclusive set in 1997. The wheels are oversized, but it looks really good in that metallic blue and there’s a ton of detailing, right down to two-tone seats and steering wheel!
(find Matchbox Premiere Mercedes on eBay)
That’s it for this update. Thanks again to Raymond for the great models. As I’ve said before, Matchbox Collectibles are generally still quite cheap to buy. The quantities made – 25,000 in the case of these Premiere Convoys – mean there are plenty to go around. Happy collecting!
These truly looks fantastic! Mattel should roll out gems like them again…