King Size Matchbox vehicles were larger models, produced by Matchbox in the 1960s and 70s. Some were enlargements of mainline models, others appeared only as King Size models. Most or all King Size models featured moving parts (e.g. opening doors, tipping beds), something that appeared only occasionally in the mainline series. To distinguish them from mainline models, King Size model numbers featured a K- prefix.
King Size vehicles first appeared in 1960, and initially featured trucks and heavy equipment (e.g. construction equipment) in a scale similar to the mainline vehicles. The DAF Car Transporter, for instance, easily carries five mainline vehicles. Larger scale cars began to appear in the 1967 line-up.
Other cars followed, with ten in the line up for 1971, when they were separated out into their own subseries, the Speed Kings, and given numbers starting at K-21. Trucks were assigned to the newly created Super Kings subseries, with numbers K-1 through K-20. This arrangement appeared to restrict the Super Kings to 20 models, but 1974 saw 23 Speed Kings, with numbers above 20 duplicated in the Speed Kings subseries. To correct this, Speed Kings numbers were shuffled in 1977, now starting with K-30. This solution was short-lived, as the Super Kings line expanded past 29 the following year, reaching 37 by 1979, the final year of production.
Also in 1974, Battle Kings debuted, featuring army vehicles. Perhaps to avoid the problem of duplicating model numbers, these were issued K- numbers starting at K-101.
All King Size vehicles were discontinued at the end of the 1979 model year, along with several other series, and Matchbox now focused only on their mainline collection.
See Also
- Real Working Rigs and Super Convoy, which together feature models similar to the Super Kings