"Real Working Rigs" Part 2. International Day!

Matchbox has a slew of great International trucks available these days and many of the best are part of the "Real Working Rigs" line.  Today we see if these are well sized for HO railroading. All of these are currently available in stores though one or two might be in different liveries.  As in past reviews I've included lots of links to corresponding Matchbox Wiki pages for those who want to see alternate versions, more pictures, etc.

For scale comparison we have a LifeLike figure, white Model Power Kennworth Semi and an orange Boley 4000 Series International truck.  

First up is the International Workstar 7500 Dump Truck  The Workstar is a large "Severe Duty" truck and looks to be spot-on for scale as it towers over the 4000 series.  Something that will be seen in many of these trucks is that the wheels are slightly bigger than scale, but it's not too noticeable. 

Next up is the International MV Box Truck. The MV is the successor to the 4000.  When the larger wheels and slightly redesigned cab are taken into account, it looks almost spot-on for scale perhaps just a touch large.  It's a great large box truck though the metal connection tabs that stick through the side of the box could be painted white.

This is the International DuraStar Flatbed.  The DuraStar is another 4000 Series and also looks good for scale.  At the link above you can see that the bed extends and angles down for auto loading.  Would be a great vehicle for setting up an accident scene on a layout.

Here we have a Matchbox truck that is not part of the Real Working Rigs Line.  Rather it's the International LoneStar from the Super Convoy collection. It's nice to have an affordable model of the Lone Star and the size is right, but this incarnation is disappointing.  The models up until 2011 were pretty good but for the 2 most recent models, Matchbox chose to substitute grey plastic for  the formerly chrome undercarriage. Additionally, they chopped short the signature tall exhausts the model used to have and substituted slightly less realistic wheels.  This one is not without potential, but it needs some work if it's not going to be more than just relegated to the background.

As a bonus, this last one is not from matchbox.  It's a cheap import clone that is fairly commonly available. This one came with some other vehicles in a $3 pack at Menards but I've also seen it on Ali Express and elsewhere. The front is actually pretty well painted and fairly accurate (see two pictures below) and the size is right but as you can see the wheels and the side of the cab are less than ideal. This would actually look quite good stuck face-out in a garage though and the dump box might have potential on a different chassis.

Here's the front, top and rear of these trucks. 

Please ignore the Freightliner Sewer Vacuum Truck. I promise it will make an appearance in a future post with some other great Matchbox I've recently acquired.

Note the functioning lift gate on the box truck.  Should probably be repainted grey or aluminum, but still a nice feature.

All in all a very nice collection of trucks.  The wheels are a smidge big and there are various chunky details on various models but at $5 each for the Real Working Rigs line it's hard to imagine a better deal on great modern prototypes of large work trucks that are very close to HO scale. 

Keep on Truckin'

Karl