Matchbox playsets: what connects and what does not

A playset is bought for one reason and kept for another. It is bought because a child wants the auto shop; it is kept because the auto shop turns thirty loose cars into a town.

Here is how the current Matchbox playsets behave once they are out of the box, written against the sets actually on sale rather than the ones the line used to make.

Action Drivers is designed to join

The line was built as a system. Ramp ends and track connectors are standardized across the sets, so an auto shop, a car wash and a bus station track bought in different years will link into one continuous run. That is the whole argument for buying a second set rather than a different brand.

What does not join is the large-scale range and the 1:24 vehicles — they are too big for the track and were never meant to run on it.

Does every Matchbox playset include a car?

Every Action Drivers box in the current range ships with at least one 1:64 scale vehicle, which matters more than it sounds: a playset that arrives without a car is unusable until somebody finds one. We list what is included on every card for exactly this reason.

The included vehicle is usually specific to the set, and in several cases that livery is not sold separately at all:

• Auto shop — a Chevy Silverado, plus moving parts and figures.
• Spin Cyclone car wash — a Corvette and a tow truck.
• Police traffic center — a Ford Police Interceptor.
• Farm Adventure — a tractor and a trailer.
• Transforming excavator — a large truck that opens into a 1:64 construction site.
• Animal rescue combo — two safari vehicles and two animal figures.
• Hitch & Haul, three boxes — a boat and a bear, a rodeo round-up, a hazmat fire rescue truck.

What the sets cover, and what they do not

Between them these cover most of what a child already plays: parking and repair, washing, policing a junction, farm work, digging, towing and animal rescue. The Takeoff Adventure airport set in the Sky Busters tray adds a plane and a toy Audi, and the helicopter rescue set adds an ambulance, so the layout can leave the ground.

What is not in the current range is worth saying plainly, because a lot of older guides still list it: there is no fuel station, no taxi rank, no mobile command unit, no escape-themed box and no multi-level transportation tower. Those existed in earlier years. A collector looking for that kind of set is shopping the secondhand market, not this one.

Collections of sets behave better than one large set. Two medium boxes joined give more realistic traffic than a single tower, because there are two destinations to drive between rather than one building to drive around. Tracking a car through a route is the play pattern; the buildings are just the excuse.

The mechanisms are mechanical

Lifts are kid-powered, the wash drum turns by hand, ramps work on gravity. Nothing in the current Action Drivers range needs batteries, which is deliberate and is why these sets still work after a year in a closet.

The large-scale trucks are the exception — the remote-control model does need cells, and the box says which.

Space, age and storage

None of the current sets is large. The auto shop and the car wash each want about the footprint of a cutting board; the bus station track is long rather than tall; the Hitch & Haul boxes are six pieces that live in a drawer. Most fold or come apart, but not all of them go back into the original box once the card insert is gone.

Age marks are three years old and up on nearly everything here, set by the small parts rather than by difficulty. A figure, a cone or a loose ramp clip is the piece that decides it, and retailers print the same mark the manufacturer does. The packaging states what is in the box; if information on a card and on a box disagree, the box is the one to trust.

Choosing between them

If it is a first set, buy the auto shop — it is the one that gets used daily, because parking and fixing is the play pattern children invent on their own. If there is already an auto shop, the car wash and the bus station track add a reason to drive between two points.

The transforming excavator and the airport set are for a floor that can stay set up. They are excellent and they do not tidy away quickly.