Turbofire (1969)

The Turbofire is one of the four fully Mattel
designed concept cars released in the 1969 product line. All
previous concept cars had been based on existing full sized custom show
cars. The other three, also designed by Ira Gilford, are the
Twinmill, Splittin' Image and the Torero. Although first issued
in 1969, the Turbofire was produced for several years and as such is
one of the most common redines.

The rear hood on the Turbofire
opens, exposing a
turbine engine. The only detail on the Turbofire is the painted
tailight. One Turbofire has been found with painted vents on the
hood,
however, its origin in unknown.

Above and below: side, front and
rear shots of the Turbofire.

All Turbofires are US made.
There are no known casting variations among production Turbofires.

An unspun Turbofire disassembled
to show the parts.
There are minor trademark and
copyright text size differences on some bases.

Nearly all Turbofires have white
interiors. Among
production Turbofires, the dark interior has only been found in red
cars. About 1% of red Turbofires have the dark interior.
All
production Turbofires have clear glass.

Over 95% of all Turbofires were assembled with bearing type
wheels. Capped wheels can be found but they are not common.
Some Turbofires have a mixture of bearing wheels and capped
wheels. Although the wheel type presents opportunities for
unusual variations, it has no particular influence on the value of a
Turbofire.

A magenta Turbofire with bearing wheels
on the front axle and cap wheels in the rear.
The Turbofire came in all of the spectraflame colors and a multitude of
shades. The tail light is usually painted in an opaque
international orange color, however certain colors have no tail light
paint at all. See the chart at the end for color rarities.

One interesting peculiarity is that some light green Turbofires have
faded to the point where they appear to be unpainted. However, a
close inspection of the inside of the fenderwells will reveal some tell
tale remnants of the light green paint.

The Turbofire at right is faded lime.
Two complete preproduction Turbofires are known. The purple is
handpainted, coming from the famous Room 1111 at Irvine. The gold one
turned up on eBay in 2003. The preproduction cars have a casting
variation which clearly distinguishes them from the production casting.

Two prototype Turbofires flank a red
production piece.
On the preproduction piece, the rear lid opens wide and the engine
exhaust pipes extend to the rear of the base. Similar to early
Ford J cars, there is no travel stop, so the hood could be extended
backwards too far and could easily be broken off. On the
production piece, the travel stop was added to the base, on top of the
tail pipes. The peg on the hood was added and and the hinge was
redesigned, adding metal to strengthen it.

The Turbofire casting was reproduced by the Muky toy company in
Argentina. They issued several variations of the Turbofire.

Color chart
US COLORS:
|
COMMENTS:
|
aqua
|
common
|
blue |
common
|
gold |
common
|
green |
common
|
lime |
common
|
antifreeze |
common
|
olive |
common
|
dark blue
|
common
|
orange
|
common
|
red/white interior
|
common
|
light blue
|
uncommon
|
purple
|
uncommon |
rose
|
uncommon |
brown
|
uncommon |
emerald green
|
uncommon |
ice blue
|
uncommon |
chocolate brown
|
uncommon |
faded lime
|
hard to find
|
hot pink
|
hard to find
|
magenta
|
hard to find
|
red/dark interior
|
very hard to find
|
light ("apple") green
|
rare
|
Turbofires, from left: lime,
antifreeze, light green and green.
Photo
& info credits: Ted
Gray

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