The Rearview Mirror: The Man Who Manufactured More Cars Than Henry Ford

Since Karl Benz produced the first genuine automobile in 1883, there have been many toy car producers. However, when prompted to name one, "Matchbox" is the name that most people would provide.

However, it wouldn't have existed if John Odell, who passed away this week in 2007 at the age of 83. If not for him and his naughty daughter, the world's children wouldn't enjoy playing with Matchbox cars.

Now manufactured by Mattel, Matchbox Toys got its start as an industrial die casting company founded by Leslie and Rodney Smith in 1947 in Hackney, England, just outside of London.

And its creation is quite a story.

Born in 1918 in Enfield, England, Leslie Charles Smith dropped out of school at the age of 14 and joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, commanding a minesweeper during World War II. It's there that he reconnected with Rodney Smith, a childhood friend. The two men, unrelated, cobbled together £600 after the war and opened a die-casting business in a bombed-out London pub called The Rifleman in London's East End. Combining their first name, they established Lesney Products in 1947 to produce industrial die cast parts.

But finding work creating dies for things like electrical plugs was difficult and so they pulled in Rodney's friend John Odell, a self-trained engineer, who was known as Jack by friends. In addition to fixing fighting vehicles during World War II, Odell, who dropped out of school at age 13, had a successful side business fixing Primus stoves.

With Odell on board, Rodney Smith sold his stake and left the company. Soon they were manufacturing door handles and small parts for automobile dashboards. It also produced other items, such as a bread bait press, which molded bread into small bits of bait that could then be placed on fishing hooks.

But Odell had a personal problem.

His daughter, Anne, attended a school that allowed students to bring toys as long as they fit inside a match box. Aside from the distraction toys cause, the bigger problem was that his devilish daughter routinely took spiders to school in her match box.

To counteract this, he made her a tiny brass steamroller instead, painted red and green, and placed it in a match box. The next day, her pals were enthralled, so much so, Odell hurried to fulfill their requests. He instantly understood that he had found the ideal toy. It was easy for a child to hold in their hand, but difficult to swallow. It was battery-free. Best of all, it was inexpensive to produce.

Their initial miniature toys were unremarkable: a steamroller, a dump truck, a bull dozer and a fire truck. But the company struck gold in 1953 when the company produced a miniature version of Queen Elizabeth II's horse-drawn coach used in her coronation packaged inside a match box. The company sold more than a million, charging the equivalent of 40¢ each.

From there, Matchbox Toys would explode in popularity on both sides of the pond, particularly once they produced their first car in 1954: an MG TD Roadster. It sold for 49¢ in the U.S. at the time, or $5.32 adjusted for inflation.

The Lilliputian cars that Odell created were sold by Smith. Some of them took more than 100 parts to construct expertly. These flawless 1/64th scale replicas of contemporary cars, trucks, and vans included working doors, hoods and wheels. The firm began producing antique vehicles in 1956, adding a series of "Superfast" cars in 1969 in order to compete with Mattel's Hot Wheels brand, which debuted the year.

Lesney designers consulted automakers, vintage-car museums, and private collectors to take photos, measurements, and review bueprints in order to confirm the Matchbox cars’ authenticity.

In a 1962 interview with The New York Times, he claimed that Matchbox employed approximately 6,000 workers and was producing a million toy cars per week, surpassing the combined production of all of the world's major automakers. "We produce more Rolls-Royces in a single day than the Rolls-Royce company has made in its entire history," Odell said.

In the 1970s, Matchbox Toys expanded their scope, building fighter planes, submarines, and Star Trek's U.S.S. Enterprise as well as larger King Size" and "Speed Kings" models. Odell retiree in 1973 coming back to Lesney in 1981 when the company was facing financial issues, a victim of Britain's deteriorating economic climate in the early 1980s as well as a shrinking population for its products.

The following year, Lesney, went into receivership, and was sold to Universal Toys. Tyco Toys later purchased Universal Toys. In 1997, Tyco and Mattel combined. Today, Mattel manufactures Matchbox cars as well as Hot Wheels.

As for Odell, after Lesney's bankruptcy, he established Lledo (his name spelled backward), creating larger-scale model cars. He remained with company until retiring in 1999. Odell died in in 2007, two years after Smith.

But the fun they created for children, as well as collectors, remains.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment

Name *

Email *

Website

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Δ