by Mebetoys and Edil, the latter only briefly, but the competition with Mercury and Mebetoys – who often offered similar models – was a challenge. Furthermore, Mattel's Hot Wheels diminished the American market after 1967. Similar to Corgi, Dinky, and Mebetoys, Politoys M used jewels for headlights, while French Solido chose more realistic clear plastic lenses. Still Politoys often had delicately rendered headlight bezel surrounds and other carefully done details (Gardiner and O'Neill 1996, p 72). While competitor Solido's niche in the diecast market was offering unique wheel styles for each model, the M-Series’ generic wire wheels were not authentic to real vehicles, but were quite attractive, classy and typical to the look of the time. By 1968, the company had also experimented with plastic wheels on low-friction axles – similar to changes made by Dinky, Corgi, Lonestar and others in reaction to the success of Hot Wheels. These added to the play value but detracted from the realism. As the 1960s progressed, Politoys produced more sports and exotic cars and fewer mundane everyday cars. This was the same tactic used by Solido at the time, but Corgi, Dinky, and French Dinky continued to offer many common sedans. Variations in 1:43 scale In 1968, the 500-series started including models labelled as "Export." These were slightly cruder than the M-series, with fewer opening features. By 1970, Politoys has "used up" the numbers from 500 to 599, including some metal versions of models previously produced in plastic. Later 1:43 scale series were the E, EL and HE. Some of the early models in these series were still up to the Politoys M in detail like the well done Lamborghini Espada and Islero (which had folding headlights)(Gardiner and O'Neill 1996, p. 73). Body details were often very good with clever features, such as the Alfa Romeo Alfasud with complete ski equipment on the roof. On later 1970s issues like this one, however, the models sported toy-like generic chrome plastic wheel designs that were pretty ugly. The EL-Series was much better than the E in this regard. David Sinclair, an Erie, Pennsylvania, importer who was responsible for starting much of the diecast car collecting hobby in the states noted that one interesting model in the EL line was an AMC Gremlin (Sinclair's 1977; Levine 2009). It was unique enough to see any American cars in European diecast, much less an AMC model! Starting in