In the 1970's Matchbox was the toy brand. Built on the strength of it's die-cast '75' range, the company prospered under the direction of Lesney Products. Matchbox had surplus funds to develop various other products to consolidate its market share. In the early seventies, it's design department began to consider other avenues for its toy making talents.
Amongst these ideas was a slot racing system. The market was flooded with 1/32 scale products from Airfix, Triang and Scalextric and the popularity of the latter was not lost on Lesney.
However, in what seems like a brilliant initiative, Lesney decided to offer a scaled down version that offered lots of potential. By using a scale close to 1/65th the system could be utilised with Hornby's popular railway sets (for which there was a growing market in accesories and scenery materials). In addition, it would sit well with Matchbox's 75 series and the myriad of accessories.
For the market, the smaller scale offered many advantages. A smaller scale meant less space required in bedrooms for a permanent layout. More complex circuit ideas within confined spaces were possible and of course the cartons were smaller and lighter to ship, store and sell.
In what seemed like a win/win scenario for retailer and customer Powertrack was launched in the UK in 1977.
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Well, this is how I thought it had developed for Matchbox. It wasn't until a few years ago that I unearthed some catalogues and history attached to Matchbox that were to provide evidence of a different development strategy...
It transpires that Matchbox were actively looking to develop a slot racing solution for the huge US market. In the US, the market already had Aurora AFX and Ideal were developing the TCR brand to move into Europe. It seems obvious now that Matchbox developed Powertrack to offset the foothold Ideal would get in the UK market.
So it was that 'Speedtrack' was unveiled in the US in 1977. For historical purposes I have to concur that although Lesney designed the Powertrack system in the UK, it was actually the American market that got the product first.
It is fair to say that the US products were far more crudely marketed than the UK products, but perhaps the rush was on to get into America - and the UK had a bit longer to get ready for launch...
With 1977 seeing the arrival of Speedtrack in the US and Powertrack in the UK, Matchbox then introduced a slotless racing system called 'Lanechanger (UK) and Lanechanger RPS (USA). This clearly was the TCR rival but it was later to market than TCR and in the UK at least had no where near the same profile as Ideals product.
By 1982 Matchbox consolidated its Powertrack range in the UK with the arrival of Powertrack Plus. Oddly, this was to be launched Stateside as 'Powertrack' - a different Powertrack Logo was employed and the Speedtrack tag would be dropped.
This would have seemed a strange idea but it did not matter, Lesney, Matchbox, Powertrack, Speedtrack, Lanechanger, RPS et all had ceased to exist past 1982...
