Career
The company initially made small products for cars such as dashboards and doorhandles. The company started manufacturing small toys to meet the demand with a million copies of a small coach sold during the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. The first 3 vehicles were a road roller, muir hill dumper and a cement mixer.
All were introduced in 1953
By 1966, more than 100 million Matchbox toys were sold each year.
Odell retired in 1973 but returned in 1981 when Lesney had run into financial problems. The company was declared insolvent in 1982 and sold to Universal Toys.
He founded Lledo, a small vehicle manufacturing company, and was active in that business until 1999 when he retired. Odell had Parkinson"s disease when he died in July 2007.
