 '75 Chevy Van
WiFi+ Repair
Matchbox Basic Cars - 2013 #40 of 120
Item No.: Asst. 30782 No. Y0720
Manufacturer: Mattel
Includes: n/a
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $1.00
Availability: 2013
Other: Is it van... or retro van?
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Past me really looked out for future me. If memory serves I got the 2013 '75 Chevy Van at a Toys R Us with a gift card, because I was amused by the "Wifi+ Repair" thing. It's almost quaint today, because while Best Buy's "Geek Squad" is a rare sight because people usually just have their telecom company fix things or people know a guy.
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This casting has been used a lot. It's also been a dog truck, it was used for cartoons, there's a Shark Week version (Discovery Channel shark week, not the other kind), a tiki one, and over a dozen others - and they're all really cool. It's not much for rolling on Hot Wheels track, but it looks cool.
The white plastic base supports a blue painted metal chassis, complete with clear tinted windows. It has a teeny tiny sculpted license plate - sadly painted over in blue, but still impressive - marked TC 4729. I'm now tempted to try to track down other versions of it to see if they're painted, but old Matchbox cars are in very short supply around here. You can get Hot Wheels back to the 1990s all over the place, but people didn't hoard the orange carded competitors quite so much. It's a shame, the detail is pretty much just as good. The Chevrolet logo is sculpted (but not painted) on the front, and there are a lot of indentations for handles.
The paint on this 2013 repaint of a 2007 toy is really great. The blue is clean and thick, evenly painted with bright tampographs that seem to cry out "Hey, does anyone remember Chu Chu Rocket?" The designs are abstract and striking, representing waves and pixels. I think. Maybe some kid just scribbled in something. It's got a nice heft to it.
It's cheap, you should get one. I'm tempted to pick up other Internet-themed cars if I see them cheap, because it's just funny to go from a world where wireless communication was expensive and scarce to one where it's everywhere. I don't know if this would even register as fun or quirky today, and Mattel cranks out trucks for food, or potted plants, or other services. Sadly, none with generic 1970s wizards that I could find yet. Hopefully that changes. Until then, be content that someone made a cool van like this so you can go "Oh yeah, I remember when people didn't just throw the router in the trash when it stopped working."
--Adam Pawlus
Additional Images
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