After Lesney went bankrupt in 1982 some of the Matchbox moulds were shipped to Bulgaria and Matchbox models from the Lesney era continued to be made but usually in a wide variety of different colours.

I think the Vauxhall Guildsman looks better in blue than it did in pink or red from the Lesney era. I found this model for 10 lari at Drybridge Market in Tbilisi. I now have two Matchbox models “Made in Bulgaria”, the other is a Lamborghini Miura, with a black interior, which I found in Varketili market, Tbilisi.

The back of the packaging has illustrations of six models available, I don’t know how many were available in total.

We see cars, which were available at different times in the Lesney era together: Mazda RX 500 (produced by Lesney from 1972 to 1976), Vauxhall Guildsman (1971 to 1977), Mercedes 300SE (1968-1971), BMW 3.0CSL (1976-1981), Ford Cortina Mk II (1968-1971) and Rolls Royce Silver Shadow II (1979-1984).

bases Pink Lesney and Blue Bulgarian

If we compare the bases of the Bulgarian model (blue car/black base) with the Lesney model (pink car/silver base) we see “Made in Bulgaria” and “Matchbox Int’l Ltd”, where before it read “Made in England” and “Lesney Products & Co Ltd”.

Some more information about Bulgarian Matchbox can be found at Planet Diecast

Here are some of the many colour variants of Bulgarian Matchbox cars from the collection of Iliya Todorov.