Subbuteo’s initial attempt at creating a figure that could be assembled and painted by machine resulted in the Zombie figure. However, this figure was poorly received due to its lifeless appearance and the overall sense of cheapness compared to the heavyweight figure.

The dissatisfaction with the Zombie figure led to the creation of the Hybrid figure, which emerged in Europe and was sold in Portugal and Italy. Introduced in 1978,
The Zombie figure coexisted alongside the far more popular HW figure until 1981 when the LW figure, superior in every way, finally replaced for both the Zombie and HW figures.

Although the Zombie figure was intended to be a machine-printed figure, many references were still hand-painted. Additionally, some teams featured a combination of hand-painted and machine-printed elements. This practice continued into the LW range as well.

The Zombie figure seems to have the least amount of information available with HW and LWs having many Websites dedicated to them compared to the other two figures the Zombie has little to no such pages… I hope to to rectify this by providing more comprehensive information on its releases and variations…