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Mercedes-Benz and Matchbox Become Partners

Mercedes-Benz and Matchbox entered into a major partnership to design a new toy car modeled after Ewy Rosqvist's iconic winning 220SE sedan. The model will be gifted to first grade girls to inspire them and shatter gender stereotypes, according to a recent press release by Matchbox.

This is an exciting announcement and that’s why all of us here at Service King Covington Pike in Memphis, TN are sharing this blog and entertaining blog with you.

Young children learn gendered stereotypes early on, which significantly influence how they play and what they aspire to be in the future. Mercedes-Benz reported that, according to some in-house researchers, little girls' preference for a tea set over a toy car is largely due to the fact that the carmaker learned that one is "meant" for girls while most of the others are made for boys. To seriously challenge these stereotypes and misperceptions, Mercedes has teamed up with Mattel, Matchbox's parent company, on a brand-new die-cast toy that is accompanied by a famous female-driven backstory.

The toy car is modeled after Mercedes’ factory rally driver Ewy Rosqvist's 220SE sedan (an S-class predecessor), that she drove to win the 1962 Argentinian Touring Car Grand Prix, making major racing history as the first female winner alongside her co-driver Ursula Wirth.

Rosqvist won all six stages of the rally, thereby setting a new average speed record of 78 mph in the process, and was the very first person to finish 3 hours ahead of the rest of the competition. Mercedes created a short video about the race, in which Rosqvist said "They said I would never finish, so I decided to win the race."

Rosqvist continued racing and winning, until she retired in 1967 after a long career devoid of breakdowns or crashes, and since has had a career as a test driver for Mercedes and a tour guide at the carmaker’s Mercedes-Benz Museum.

To go along with the release of this attention-getting toy, Mercedes and Mattel put out a short video that shows a number of first-grade girls sitting at a table with a large selection of toys. They're asked about which toys they would want to play with, and all of them gravitate towards typically girl toys like dolls or a stuffed unicorn. When asked why they didn't pick the toy car—the 220SE—they say things like "It's a boy toy" and "I wouldn't pick the toy car because I'm a girl."

Hopefully, Mercedes and Matchbox will get girls excited about racing and Ewy Rosqvist's legendary winning 220SE sedan, in order to open up a whole new market for both companies.

  Service King Covington Pike, 1919 Covington Pike, Memphis, TN, 38128 

Sources: Mercedes-Benz and Matchbox

 

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