the pointless weblog

The Prototypes Top Trumps were one of the original packs that were produced by Dubreq, the company that invented Top Trumps in the 70s. They were eventually bought out by Waddingtons in the early 80s. The pack contained 32 playing cards, as well as the title card, which had the rules on the back.

The cards all featured prototyped cars that weren’t yet in mass-production, and most of which presumably never made it into mass-production, either. There’s some beautiful example of lovely 1970s futurism in the designs. The Pininfarina Modulo appears to have been stolen directly from the ste of Battlestar Galactica.

The worst thing about this pack was the mildly and endlessly infuriating way some of the stats weren’t numerical, causing untold arguments and stalemates. It wasn’t the worst for this but I still cannot forgive it for its crimes.

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These World Cup Top Trumps were published in 1991 or so, so the information on them is all correct up to and including Italia 90. Sometimes I think about making a new set, all comprehensive and up-to-date and beautiful, but I never do.

I remember obsessing about all the statistics on these cards. I think I still know most of them off by heart. Pointless brain. I was always amazed how many goals Hungary had scored, and how few England had, given how many games they’d played. Later I discovered that England were the most boring team in the world, and I understood everything perfectly.

And poor Wales were almost the worst card of all, which always made me a bit upset. They couldn’t even be bothered to get a photo from when they actually played there, either.

All the rest of the cards are below. The teams, in order, are Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Morocco, Northern Ireland, Paraguay, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Uruguay, the USA, the USSR, Wales, and Yugoslavia.

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