Brazilian UNICORNS: The Uber Rare Roly Toys & Inbrima Matchbox Cars

From the files of our diecast collections, this Saturday Evening Post has some real “red meat” for my fellow Matchbox collectors! This is a topic I’ve been aware of for a while but had slipped through the cracks over the years in all the excitement about Thunderjets. Thanks to a recent comment by a reader who was raised in Brazil, this latent interest was recently rekindled!

I’ve been a serious Matchbox collector for over 40 years now. Since my focus is on the 1953-1982 Lesney era, I’ve seen some pretty rare pieces, but there is an entire category of Matchbox car that is so rare that I’ve never laid eyes on one in person in my lifetime.

Every collector has their “white whale.” For many of us, it’s that elusive Superfast variation or a blister card from a non-English-speaking land. But for the truly esoteric Matchbox hunter, the rarest quarry comes from halfway across the globe — the short, strange, and fragile production runs of Matchbox cars in Brazil. From Roly Toys in Rio de Janeiro to Inbrima in Manaus, the story of Matchbox in Brazil is a tale of small-scale industry, fragile finishes, and a market that barely leaked across its own borders. Even veteran collectors like your humble blogger have never held one in their hands.

Roly Toys: Brazil’s Own Miniatures

Founded in 1964, Roly Toys set out to make 1:64 diecast versions of the cars Brazilians actually drove. Their lineup included:

• Willys Interlagos Berlineta
• DKW Vemaguet wagon
• Volkswagen Kombi and Beetle
• Jeep Willys
• Scania Vabis dump truck
• Mercedes-Benz LP-321 tanker

Paint adhesion was poor, so survivors today often look battered even when they weren’t. In 1969, Roly tried to answer the Hot Wheels revolution with a short-lived “Bólidos” line — faster-rolling Interlagos and Karmann Ghia models.

By 1967, Roly was also Lesney’s official Brazilian importer, and many English-made Matchbox boxes from the period carry a bright orange sticker:
“Distribuidor Exclusivo – Roly Toys – Rua da Gamboa 279, Rio de Janeiro.”

The Move North: Inbrima in Manaus

In the early 1970s, Brazil’s government incentivized industry in the Amazon’s new Manaus Free Trade Zone. Roly shifted operations north, renaming itself Inbrima — Indústria de Brinquedos do Amazonas S.A.

Here, Inbrima assembled Matchbox cars from parts shipped in by Lesney. Bases and packaging gained unique identifiers:

• Paper “Inbrima” labels (black, later gold-foil)
• Engraved “FAB ZF MANAUS” bases
• Clip-on plastic tags with “Manaus” — often missing today, leaving two holes in the base
• Sometimes the original “Made in England” was crudely drilled away

Boxes changed too:

• Generic fantasy-car artwork with color-coded number stickers (yellow/red, later red/black)
• A handful of special picture boxes in 1976 (Challenger, Faun, Firebird, Formula 5000)
• By 1981, blue window boxes labeled Lesney Products PLC with white flap stickers

Inbrima’s paint choices were often bolder than UK runs — you might find a Dodge Challenger in a color that never saw a London factory.

The End of the Road

When Lesney collapsed in 1982, Inbrima’s pipeline dried up. The factory was eventually absorbed by Trol, who continued producing Matchbox into the Universal era under the “Trol Inbrima” name. But by then, the magic of the Lesney years was gone.

Chasing Unicorns Today

So why are Brazilian Matchbox models almost mythically rare?

• Limited distribution: Made for Brazil only, never exported in bulk.
• Fragile finishes: Roly paint flakes, Inbrima labels fall off.
• Small runs: Production numbers were tiny compared to UK output.
• Transition chaos: Lesney’s downfall left many stranded in obscurity.

For collectors outside South America, encountering one in person is a once-in-a-lifetime event. Empty boxes with distributor stickers sometimes surface, but intact cars are rarer than rare.

The Brazilian Matchbox cars of the Lesney era are ghosts of the diecast world — fragile, scarce, and endlessly fascinating. They represent a unique collision of local industry, government policy, and global toy history.

Most of us will never own one. Many of us will never even see one outside of a photo. But knowing they existed, even for a short time, reminds us that the Matchbox story is bigger — and stranger — than the shelves we grew up with.

References:

Some sites that provided helpful information for this post include:

History of Roly Toys – Tuttomini

A site in Portuguese, naturally, but with the help of “moderen” technology, you can x-late it all into the language of your choice with the click of button! This “deep dive” is a knowledgeable and fascinating read!

Matchbox Brazil – Toymart FREE Price Guide

The Brazilian Matchbox page at ToyMart

Brinquedos Raros – Loja

A superb collection of Lesney-era and post-Lesney era Brazilian MBX cars carefully photographed and cataloged, even with variations: not to be missed for those interested in the topic!

Keep hunting and collecting, fellow gearheads…you never know what might turn up out there!

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⚡️ ThunderJet Heaven: Keeping the obscure stories alive, one forgotten casting at a time.