Perhaps the best known and certainly the most romantic of all public vehicles was the passenger coach. This particular type of coach originated in 1784 when John Palmer, a member of the British Parliament and a proprietor of a theatre in Bath needed to commute regularly between London and Bath. He saw the opportunity that by using his carriage to send messages was far quicker than the existing unrealiable messenger service. He succeeded in persuading the Goverment to allow him to provide a regular service of carrying passenger and post. This proved to be so successful that it was extended to other major cities as well.
Coaches were hired to the goverment and were painted in the royal livery of scarlet, maroon and black with the royal arms on the door panels. The guard in charge wore a scarlet coat and was armed with a blunderbuss and pistols to defend the coach, and a long stemmed horn for sounding alarms.
Later versions dating from the 1800's had outside seats for passengers, and the coach bodywork was balanced on side and transverse semi-elliptical springs at the front and back. The passenger compartment was mounted on a box structure, with the drivers and guard seats mounted on the prominent sections. A three aspect lamp would be fitted to the centre near the driver's foot board. There would be 2 head lamps and 2 smaller side lamps placed in front of the coach doors on either side of the passenger compartment.
The essential part (of the coach) was the four horse team. They should be changed to fresh horses every 11 to 16 kilometres, enabling high speed. The fastest coaches had an average speed of 16,4 km/hour and could cover the 320 km distance between London and York in less than 20 hours. Time keeping was so accurate that people living along the route would set their clocks by the coaches.

The (Y39-1) 1820 Passenger Coach & Horses was released in 1990 packaged in a Special Limited Edition box. The model was packaged in a special container which was a two piece moulded polysterene holder within a bright red, maroon and gold finished cardboard sleeve.

The total production quantity was 39,880.

Livery: (Tampo)
The body is lined in gold and it displays the "VR" monogram of Queen Victoria.
'VR' in gold within gold coachlines on both front side panels.
'No. 14' within gold coachlines on both side panels.
Gold coachlines to maroon door panels and panels beneath door door window openings.

Variations/Rarities: There are no variations hence no rarities.

Interesting Facts: This model was based on a coach located at the Science Museum in London, England. originally it was to have been a Royal Mail Coach but this would have meant that Matchbox would have had to pay royalties and the Company refused to do that, and so the Royal Mail logo was not used.

Scale: 1:43

1820 Passenger Coach & Horses

Box marked as a 'Special Edition'
and 'YS-39'