Leslie Smith, 87, a Matchbox Car Creator, Dies 
By MARGALIT FOX
Leslie Smith, who for several decades after World War II was the world's largest automaker, at least in part because he made the world's smallest autos, died on May 26 at his home in North London. Mr. Smith, a founder, president and longtime chief executive of Matchbox Toys, was 87.
The cause was cancer, his son Andrew said.
Matchbox cars, which include everything from humble dump trucks to elegant Rolls-Royces, were introduced in 1953 and continue to be sold worldwide. Coveted, accumulated and passionately traded, they were a staple of childhood in the 1950's and after. They sold for 49 cents in the baby boom years, and now cost about a dollar.
Known for their craftsmanship and realistic detail, the cars are also prized by collectors, with vintage models sometimes fetching thousands of dollars. A rare Matchbox Dodge wreck truck recently sold on
eBay for more than $9,000, Charlie Mack, the editor of Matchbox USA magazine, said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Designed to fit into a postwar-era British matchbox, the best-known Matchbox cars measure about three inches long. Mr. Smith's company, which began as a die-casting business, was by 1962 turning out 50 million cars a year - more, The
New York Times reported, "than all of the world's major automobile producers combined." Matchbox Toys are now manufactured by
Mattel.
Leslie Charles Smith was born in Enfield, in Middlesex County, England, on March 6, 1918. He left school at 14 and served with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in World War II, commanding a mine sweeper in European and North African waters.
In the navy, Mr. Smith was reunited with Rodney Smith, a boyhood friend. After the war, the two men, who were not related, scraped together £600 and set up shop as die casters in the East End of London. They called their company Lesney Products, an amalgam of their first names.
Not long after they were joined by Jack Odell, a friend of Rodney Smith.
As the story goes, Mr. Odell created Lesney's first toy, a small brass road roller, in 1952 as a gift for his young daughter, who quickly became the envy of her schoolmates. In 1953, when Queen Elizabeth II took the throne, Lesney released a miniature version of her coronation coach. More than a million were sold.
The company's earliest miniature vehicles, the first to bear the Matchbox name, were marketed that year. Workaday affairs, they included a dump truck, a cement mixer and a road roller. An immediate success in Britain, the toys were introduced in the United States shortly afterward.
Lesney released its first miniature cars in the mid-1950's, starting with an MG Midget TD, which was followed by a Vauxhall Cresta and
a Ford Zodiac.
To make the cars, Lesney designers regularly visited automakers, vintage-car museums and private collectors, photographing old and new models from every angle, taking exhaustive measurements, even obtaining blueprints. The result, scale models that were generally one-sixty-fourth the size of the real thing, were palm-size automotive microcosms, with wheels that turned and, in later years, doors, hoods and trunks that opened.
In 1956, Lesney introduced its Models of Yesteryear line, based on turn-of-the-century vehicles. In 1969, facing competition from Mattel's Hot Wheels cars, the company introduced its Superfast line of toy autos.
In 1982, Lesney, then in bankruptcy, was sold to Universal Toys, which was later acquired by Tyco Toys. Tyco merged with Mattel in 1997.
Mr. Smith's wife, the former Nancy Jackson-Moore, died in 1969. Besides his son Andrew, of Hertfordshire, he is survived by another son, John, of Dorset; a daughter, Karen Brouard, of Kent; a sister, Mollie Rissbrook of Enfield; and nine grandchildren.
Here's to internal combustion and wind in the face."
). But thanks to the worldwide garage sale known as Ebay, I bought its replacement and it stands in a place of honor in my bookcase in my office. People see it and always comment on it. Pics to follow. 
