Jack Odell; engineer invented Matchbox cars
NEW YORK -- Jack Odell -- a self-trained engineer whose daughter's mischievous habit of taking spiders to school in a matchbox prompted him to make her a tiny steamroller as a substitute, an invention that led to Matchbox Toys, maker of 3 billion Lilliputian vehicles in 12,000 models -- died July 7 in London. He was 87.
His son-in-law Josh Walsh announced the death and said Mr. Odell had had Parkinson's disease.
The steamroller, made of brass and painted shiny red and green, satisfied Mr. Odell's daughter, Anne, and so impressed her friends that he raced to meet the demand. It seemed a dandy toy: just right for a child's hand but difficult to swallow, no batteries, violence- free, quiet, and costing just pennies to make.
By the next year, 1953, the steamroller and vehicles like it were rolling off a production line in a small factory that Mr. Odell and a pair of partners had set up in a former London pub, The Rifleman. After the steamroller came a Land Rover, a London bus, a bulldozer, and a fire engine. In 1954, the 19th vehicle in the series was rolled out: a dainty MG TD roadster, the first Matchbox car. The toys quickly spread to the United States, where they typically sold for 49 cents.
They were finely wrought things. Mr. Odell designed one machine to spray-paint tiny silver headlights on the models and one to mold interiors. All the dashboard dials were in precisely the right place. Some cars had more than 100 die-cast parts, including windshield wipers and ceiling hooks.
By 1962, Matchbox was knocking out a million toy automobiles a week, more than the number of real ones made by all the world's major automakers combined, he told The
John William Odell was born into a poor family on March 19, 1920, in north London. He was expelled from school at 13, and later said he could not remember the reason.
"Let's just say I was a bloody rebel," he was quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraph, a London newspaper. He took a succession of jobs, including driving a van and selling real estate. Hired as a movie projectionist, he was fired after he put the film in backward. During World War II, he served with the British Army in Africa and Italy, working as a mechanic.
After the war, he found work at a small die-casting firm, sweeping the floors. Deeming the engineering work there mediocre, he figured he could do better, his son-in- law said, and decided to open his own shop.
His mother, however, refused to let him do so in her house, so he joined two war veterans at their shop. They were Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith (unrelated). They had named their company Lesney Products by combining the first syllable of Leslie's first name and the last one of Rodney's.
Mr. Odell and Leslie Smith soon found themselves running the shop after Rodney Smith, seeing no future in it, left. They initially made small products for cars such as door handles and dashboards. Their first toy was a gun.
Mr. Odell made his historic steamroller in 1952. It had to fit into a matchbox because of a school rule barring any bigger toy. (Spiders fit quite nicely.)
Mr. Odell leaves his wife, Patricia (Hilsdon); two daughters; three stepdaughters; and a brother. 