LESNEY Products & Co. Ltd. was founded in 1947 as an industrial die-casting company by founders Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith, who were unrelated. The company name was a melding of their first names. They soon were followed by designer Jack Odell. In 1949 the company started experimenting with toy making to take up surplus plant capacity during the Christmas season. Around this time, Jack Odell designed a small toy for his daughter. Her school only allowed children to bring toys that could fit inside a matchbox, so Odell crafted a scaled-down version of the LESNEY road roller. Based on the size restriction, the idea was born to sell the model in a replica matchbox — thus yielding the name of the series that would propel LESNEY to worldwide, mass-market success. The series would grow to, and then settle at a 72-vehicle line. One interesting detail was that the models were made to no particular scale, the object being to make them fit into a matchbox, thus a VW Bus could be the same size as a Greyhound bus!
The third version of the MATCHBOX No. 34 was the Volkswagen Camper, first released in 1966. Known to collectors as the 34-C, the Camper VW was silver and had a high roof. It had cutout windows and opening cargo doors on the left side. Body details included door seams, side air louvers and engine lid with license plate No. MG-M515. The window inserts were molded in transparent orange plastic. The black diecast baseplate had working suspension, black plastic wheels, and was riveted to the body.
A further variation was the No. 34-D Volkswagen Camper with a low roof, first released in 1968. At this time, LESNEY was producing hundreds of thousands of toys each week, and one of their sidelines was selling vinyl plastic carrying cases for the models. It was found that the Volkswagen Camper was too tall to fit in the cases properly, so the casting was altered to lower the roofline. The model is otherwise identical to the 34-C. A late variation was the addition of a lip to the bottom of the front bumper, so the Camper could be pulled by a MATCHBOX tow truck. These high-quality MATCHBOX models were extremely popular worldwide, and have formed the starting point for many toy collections.
