Right, thanks for staying interested Lancechanger fans! Here I get to the cars at last.
From launch, both RPS and Lanechanger featured the excellent Porsche 935 Turbo and the Chevrolet Monza (above).
It's a very curious mix, not least because the Porsche in real life was a thumping great 700bhp monster that won races, while the little Monza was a 700bhp monster that didn't.
To be fair, the Monza did produce results but generally only stateside. One wonders if the Lesney tie-up was a marketing opportunity by General Motors to raise the profile of the Monza. The car did run in Le Mans in '77 and '78 but to no avail - it's international glory denied.
Whatever, the Monza certainly looks the business. I have spent several hours trying to graft a Monza shell on to a Powertrack chassis but forget it, it's not something for the casual modeller. (If you have successfully performed such an operation please let us know!)
In 1978, the US catalogue showed preview renderings of the cars for RPS 2000 & 4000 (above).
The cars operated by having 3 pick up shoe positions. Cars would have a common shoe (the LH) and the RH shoe would either be normal (Car A) or have a club foot (Car B). Matchbox certainly began by calling Porsches Car A and Monzas Car B. When I found out that two Car A's couldn't be raced together I was very disappointed. It made the limited range of cars even more limited.
However, I bought a mint boxed Monza last year and was relieved to find out it was supplied with both A and B type pick up shoes and a pair of spare motor pinions. Matchbox must have corrected this after launch.
In 1979, there were two more additions to the range, a BMW M1 and Zakspeed Ford Capri. There were also more variations of Porsches & Monzas on the way.
