The diecast line of small vehicles first debuted in Canada in 1978. The diecast vehicles' cards and boxes had both English and French printing on both sides; a tell-tale sign that the item is Canadian. A set of seven diecast vehicles were created for the SW line and another three were created for the ESB line. The fourth diecast vehicle; the elusive TIE Bomber was never released in Canada.
1978 (SW): Landspeeder - X-Wing Fighter - TIE Fighter
1979 (SW): Darth Vader TIE Fighter - Imperial Cruiser - Y-Wing Fighter - Millennium Falcon
1980 (ESB): Snowspeeder - Slave I - Cloud Car - TIE Bomber
Landspeeder:
The diecast Landspeeder on a Star Wars card.
X-Wing Fighter:
The diecast X-Wing Fighter on a Star Wars card.
TIE Fighter:
The diecast TIE Fighter on a Star Wars card.
Darth Vader TIE Fighter:
The diecast Darth Vader TIE Fighter on a Star Wars card. Collector's with a keen eye will notice that the Canadian card of the Darth Vader TIE Fighter is the "small-winged" version that has been seen in extremely low numbers in the U.S. in prototype form.
The pink background box behind the vehicle is slightly smaller, and the "Die Cast Metal / High Impact Plastic" starburst is placed just under the X-Wing laser blast, similar to the American "small-winged" Darth Vader TIE Fighter. The vehicle itself is the regular, "large-winged" version of the vehicle, however. There have been no confirmations of legitimate "small-winged" Darth Vader TIE Fighters on Canadian cards; they only appear on American cards as samples.
Imperial Cruiser:
The diecast Imperial Cruiser in Star Wars box.
Y-Wing Fighter:
The diecast Y-Wing Fighter in Star Wars box.
Millennium Falcon:
The diecast Millennium Falcon in Star Wars box.
Snowspeeder:
The diecast Snowspeeder on an ESB card.
Slave I:
The diecast Slave I on an ESB card.
Twin Pod Cloud Car:
The diecast Twin Pod Cloud Car on an ESB card.
TIE Bomber:
Although only test marketed in the U.S. and never released in Canada, the TIE Bomber does appear in the Canadian ESB pack-in catalogues of the time. Oddly enough, the TIE Bomber is presented in its white production version in Canadian catalogues as opposed to the grey prototype version as found in American ESB pack-in catalogues of the same period.
