Lledo was one of the last mass production diecasts to be made in UK. Unfortunately they couldn’t compete with manufacturers from the Far East and went bankrupt in 1999. The name Lledo came from Matchbox co-founder Jack Odell writing his name backwards. The models were similar to Matchbox Models of Yesteryear.

I have four in my collection, I’m more interested in cars from the sixties and seventies, than those from before the Second World War.

The first one I got was the rather splendid Supercharged Bentley, which I picked up for £2 at the Wigginton Car Boot Sale (near York). From an era when manufacturing was strong in UK and Bentley wasn’t German owned. Then, I found the 1925 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost loose at Drybridge Market in Tbilisi for 5 lari (knocked down from 10 lari). The last one for my collection is the 1939 Chevrolet Pick Up with Standard Oil cans, this also came from Drybridge Market and I got it in exchange for a couple of Chinese made Soviet models, I picked up at Poundland in Newquay.

Ford Model T Vans were popular with Lledo and also with Matchbox Yesteryear because the same casting could carry a variety of different liveries. I’m not a great fan of these but I did pick up an example cheaply at the Wigginton Boot Sale on my most recent trip to UK (July 2016).