Matchbox News – 5/6/2022 – New 5 Packs, F-150 Lightning, and More!

Matchbox’s new 5-packs have been spotted in the wild, and they look to be some of the best ones of 2022. First up is the “City Drivers” pack, which appears to feature all new decos, making it an obvious buy for Matchbox fans. It features a Chrysler 300C with a clean blue paint job, a Toyota Prius Taxi with a “Speedy X-Press” deco, a Volvo V60 in black, a Fiat 500X in white, and Postal Service Delivery Truck (Matchbox’s take on the Grumman LLV) with a Matchbox delivery deco. The Volvo V60 in particular is one of my favorite recent Matchbox castings so I can’t wait to get my hands on another one.

The second new 5-pack that was spotted is the “MBX Service” pack, which looks to have an El Segundo theme. We’ve seen the Ford Explorer Interceptor in this El Segundo livery before, but the rest of the models appear to sport new decos. We have an ambulance, Ford F-550 Super Duty, and Ram 1500 Police all sporting matching El Segundo liveries. Finally, there is a Ford Transit TV News van with what appears to be “El Segundo Local News” on the side, though I have no idea whether this is based on a real news station or not.

What’s most interesting about this pack is the F-550 and Ram 1500 were included in a MatchboxWorld Instagram sneak a few months ago, and at the time I predicted a police 5-pack was coming. While that is essentially what this “MBX Service” pack is, there are a few police cars we’ve seen sneaks of that were not included in this pack. Will they appear in the mainline? Will we be getting another police 5-pack? Only time will tell, but we know we have the following police cars still coming:

Dodge Charger Police – Illinois State Police
Dodge Charger Police – Unknown Livery
Ford Explorer Interceptor Utility – Monroe Police
Alfa Romeo Giulia – Polizia

Matchbox Ford F-150 Lightning Pre-Production Model

The most recent Matchbox sneak also featured some highly anticipated new cars, as well as some new decos. My favorite is the new Ford F-150 Lightning, which we see here in what appears to be final production spec. It appears in silver with full headlight and grill detailing, just the way we like it. I appreciate the stock looking ride height and wheel choice, which means this model should pair well with some of the other “normal” Matchbox trucks we’ve seen recently, including the Chevy Silverado 1500 and Ford Raptor. Perhaps my favorite detail on this new Lightning is the shape of the front windows. All F-150’s have a dip in the beltline to increase visibility, and I love how well Matchbox executed that design detail on their model, especially when paired with the appropriately large side mirrors!

Matchbox Ford Mustang Mach E Prototype Model

We also see what appears to be the first pre-production sneak of the Mustang Mach-E in the background. Unfortunately, there’s no particularly clear picture of this casting, but we can make out some details about it. It appears that Matchbox has chosen to make the roof out of the window section, which I suspect means we will get dark or fully black windows on the final release (though we can see this model does have an interior). While plastic roof sections are often controversial, doing this allows the model to replicate the design trick of the Mach-E where the roof is black but more squared off to allow interior space and the painted body slopes down more aggressively to make the Mach-E visually lower and sleeker. I love seeing this kind of attention to detail. We can also make out the detail of the charging port cover on the driver’s side fender, and it appears that the base will be used to form the cladding around the wheel arches. My biggest concern with this model is the lack of detail in the headlight area, so I hope every release of this car gets full headlight and grill detailing as I suspect the model will look quite odd without it.

We also saw final production colors for some castings we’ve seen before: