Shortly after they founded the company, Rodney Smith introduced to his partner a man named John "Jack" Odell, an engineer he had met in a previous job at D.C.M.T.

Mr. Odell initially rented a space in the Lesney building to make his own die-casting products, but he joined the company as a partner in that same year.

Lesney originally started operations in a derelict pub in north London (The Rifleman), but later, as finances allowed, changed location several times before finally moving to a factory in Hackney which became synonymous with the company.

As that proved to be a viable alternative to reducing their factory's output during periods in which they received fewer or smaller industrial orders, they started making die cast model toys the following year.

The company continued to produce non-toy items; of those marketed directly by Lesney, one of the more popular ones was a fishing bait press, well liked by British anglers at the time.

The final and decisive stepping stone in the pre-Matchbox era was a toy which Mr. Odell designed for his daughter Annie: a scaled-down version of the Lesney green and red road roller.

The road roller ultimately became the first of the Matchbox 1-75 miniature range; a dump truck, a cement mixer, and a Massey Harris Tractor (labelled 1a, 2a, 3a, and 4a respectively) completed the original four-model release.