3/28/20 92/100 Excavator

The rest of the trucks in this series are construction veterans that get some simple decos that also come with mud splatter as a nice touch, and one of them is this excavator released in 1981 and is based on the Atlas Excavator.  Excavators are designed to take out the most difficult part of a construction site: digging out those holes, especially when they are large ones, or transferring dirt or debris from one site to another.  This Matchbox version is so nicely done that it caused Hot Wheels to stop using the new Excavator casting that debut in 1997 (around the time Mattel bought ownership of Matchbox brand) and it is still in use today even though the shovel is now non-moveable.  This one sports a simple yellow cab with realistic side graphics and dirt on the bottom, and while the cab is metal the base is plastic with faux tracks as the machine moves with military wheels on the base.  The metal cab does rotate 360 degrees and with the moveable arm and shovel creates lots of function and play with this casting.  Ones with the Matchbox 2000 logo sits just above the engine cover and if you haven’t noticed yet I have a few of the ROW versions where the name is different from the U.S. and the series numbers ends in the 70’s meaning this is the last series for the ROW 1-75 line (they did not get the 100 vehicles the U.S. got).

Specifications:

· Engine: Turbodiesel I-6 est.

· Transmission: 4-speed est.

· 0-60 mph: Near Stationary

· Real vehicle price: $35,000 est. 1997

Rating:  3.9 out of 5 stars