I know there wasn’t really a publicly-accessible internet in 1972, and certainly nothing like Amazon or Temu where you could just order whatever you want by looking at a few pictures, reading a bit of text making a choice and then having your stuff show up at your door. Well, except that there absolutely was. They were just made of paper and called catalogs, but they did essentially the same thing, with the help of the telephone network.
And, of course, these catalogs, like the famous and now quite defunct Sears catalog, had all kinds of interesting automotive options. There were, famously, real cars you could order, like the Allstate, which was Sears’ re-badged Henry J, but today I just want to focus on kid cars, those little ride-on vehicles, powered either by motors or kid-leg power.
These are all from Sears’ 1972 Christmas Book (and all scans provided by the catalog obsessives over at christmas.musetechnical.com) and there’s some pretty interesting options for the early ’70s kid-on-the-go. Let’s look at them! And judge them, harshly, for fun!
Let’s start with some sweet pedal cars, the pinnacle of which seems to be Sears’ take on a Jaguar E-Type, which looks pretty good, considering, even if it is a pretty unlikely candidate to be licensed by Sears for a kid’s car? I mean, Jaguar always had a lot of cachet, especially in America, so maybe not? Still, it’s a lot more class than I expected out of a ’70s Sears catalog. And, I bet it was a bit more reliable than a real Jag, since I don’t think this one had Lucas electrics.
I think even more interesting is the real-car tie-in down below; sure, we have the Meyers Manx-ish Gator Bug, which is cool, and the Way-Out Dragster for toddlers willing to do a bit of experimentation with drugs, but I’m more fascinated by the two stamped steel cars at the bottom.
They’re both using the same basic mold, but one is a fire truck and the other is a… Pinto?
Yep! It’s a Pinto! Remember, this was before the Pinto had acquired its, um, explosive reputation. But beyond the Pinto logo and stripe, did anything make this pedal car Pinto-like?
No. Not really. I tried to see where some of the styling cues may have come from, and it looks like it has an early Mustang bumper and a grille/front end that resembles a Jeep “razor grille” design, but other than the Pinto stripe decal, Sears really phoned it in with this one.
What if you want some power, though? What if your kid is a lazy-ass with weak, rubbery legs? Well, Sears has some electric cars and trikes as well! And half of them are designed around jobs like being a telephone lineman or construction worker!
Honestly, those are pretty cool. The Bell Telephone truck even kind of emulates the famous Bell System service vehicle livery, and has a ringing phone!
The Construction Buggy has all the design refinement of a sandbox, and it actually seems like it can sort of function like a mobile sandbox, with that big front bin. These things could do up to 2 mph! Perfect for getting to and from the playground on time when you have a stack of coloring waiting for you in your inbox.
That Big Bumper thing seems to be like a bumper car sort of thing, and I can imagine how much fun it would have been, smacking into furniture all over the house, for about 20 minutes until your short-tempered ’70s parents finally had enough and put out their cigarettes so they could grab you by your upper arm and administer a brutal and protracted spanking.
You know, you don’t have to go with the first name for a product that pops into your head. You can take your time! That means, if you have a toddler’s riding toy that uses pedals, you don’t have to call it a Ped-O-Trike. You could think of something else, if you wanted! Maybe, you know, anything else, like something that didn’t immediately bring up thoughts of pedophiles. I mean, if you want. It’s an option.
Look at these chain-driven beasts! That Indy-style racer seems pretty cool, but check out the one with the two-speed stick shift above it! Is that front wheel drive? Does it have a little chain in that front fork from the pedals to the wheel? I’ve never seen anything like that.
There’s also that Zoom Zoom pump-action one that seems to operate like a railroad handcart? Could you steer and pump that crankshaft at the same time? Wait, can that thing steer at all? Looking at it, I’m not so sure. The front wheels may be on some kind of center pivot but how – oh! Feet! You steer with your feet! Whew, okay, glad we figured that out.
This is also kind of cool – a little set of wheels and a steering wheel and other bits needed to make a go-kart! An old school wooden go-kart! These are the tricky parts to source, so you could just order this and then your dad could go out in his woodshop and start making the wooden body, which involves you hearing some hammering and then a yell of SONNNOVABITCH and then he’s just in there swearing and drinking until he passes out.
Eventually you’ll end up riding an orange crate with wheels on it down a hill with no brakes, not to worry.
Good times!
“Zoom Zoom”
Mazda may have a case against Sears…oh, wait a minute…
I actually loved Sears a lot and still sad they’re gone…I really liked their Craftsman weedeaters/mowers/tools
I always wanted a version of these growing up but never had the opportunity or money to get one. Power wheels were all the rage growing up in the 80’s. I skipped those totally and went to bikes, then was interested in motorcycles. However I remember buying my first bmx bike (Huffy) that was silver and gold/yellow from a garage sale. It was really heavy and I did everything I could to break that thing. It was solid. So the richer kids were riding mongooses and Diamondbacks. But my huffy was a tank. It just sucked at jumping things due to its weight.
> your dad could go out in his woodshop and start making the wooden body, which involves you hearing some hammering and then a yell of SONNNOVABITCH and then he’s just in there swearing and drinking until he passes out.
Too real.
Its wild I’ve seen absolutely none of these survive into modern times. Never come across any of them at a yard sale, thrift store, flea market, whatever.
Also interesting if that’s the case even with the fact that these are from the time of overlap from them being made of metal (Radio Flyer era) to made of plastic (Big Wheel – Little Tykes era). I guess no one had the thought, “wait, let’s save the nasty rusty pedal car that Junior kept slicing his ankles on when his feet caught underneath, it’ll be worth money some day.”
Was just commenting to my wife this weekend about the state of Radio Flyers now. We were out at a beer garden and folks coming in with kids had these nylon sided, plastic framed, Radio Flyer wagons. It was kind of depressing. I cant imagine finding one of those type at an antique store in 20-25 years, who would want it?
My next door neighbor was my best friend when I was about 10. His dad built him a full plywood model A with electric motor, opening doors and everything. We could both fit side by side in that thing. We’d drive up and down the street like bosses. Better than any power wheels or store bought toy. Though I love all of these ride-ons!
So I had the Ped-o-Trike and wore the wheels off it.
One memorable ride was when I went down a very steep hill my hill climbing motorcycling dad used to ride up. I came down in a hurry but didn’t dump it.
(dad had A Honda Scrambler 360 with a giant back socket)
My family watching me wasn’t worried. Childhood back then was either you survived or died. Some died. A lot actually. We don’t talk about them when we glorify riding in the back of pickups and how we drank leaded gas for breakfast cuz we wuz so tough unlike these Low-T Betas of today!
(geesh, if I have to hear one more geezer like me brag about how strong we were…)
And I so badly wanted that fire truck! But geez-Louise in modern freedom bucks that thing was nearly $150! Who could afford that?
Don’t forget the weird obsession with drinking from the garden hose.
As a six year old, when you gorged yourself on the hose you were being a magnificent untamed beast of the wild, not a weak civilized thing that had to ask mommy for a glass of water. Independence! Self-determination! Resourcefulness! And there was the ever-present adventurous possibility of being drenched accidentally, or on purpose.
My father made me a push-car very like the one illustrated with the Build-it-yourself Go-cart Racer Set, but I’m pretty sure he got all the wheels and fittings at the hardware store and possibly an antique shop (or, come to think of it, his father-in-law, who had the most amazing collection of Stuff in his basement). The steering wheel is an eight-inch cast iron valve wheel from something or other and the wheels might have originally been meant for some sort of lawn equipment (though they’re bigger than mower wheels). He made a grille for it using half-inch dowels set vertically in a recess in the front. I’m pretty sure the steering is more sophisticated–I’ll have to have a look at it next time I’m at my parents’ house.
Alas, we had none of these. Just hand-me-down metal trikes. For most of our childhoods, we lived on a hill in a suburban type part of town (but in a town too small for actual suburbs, but that’s where the 1960s houses were). My younger siblings and the other neighborhood kids would sit low on the rear deck of their trikes and freewheel down said hill, ignoring the whirling pedals. Amazingly, I don’t recall anything in the way of serious injuries.
We did that. Scared my grandmother when we did it down the grass hill on her farm.
Hah! I remember my mom saying something along the lines of it’s a good thing that our grandmother wasn’t there to see it. Probably mostly meant our paternal grandmother, our maternal grandmother was farm born and raised, much harder to phase her. But seeing as how Mom didn’t stop it (also farm born and raised), I guess it was deemed not TOO unsafe. Quiet residential sidewalks and all that.
Broken arm in the farmyard: wrap it and go on about your chores.
Broken arm on a city street: somebody calls 911, ambulance comes, spend the day in the emergency room.
As long as we’re judging things harshly, are we going to talk about those kids’ haircuts? No? Ok fine
Its appears the bowls of the 70’s produced very similar haircuts to the bowls of the 90’s. So there’s something common across those eras at least.
I hurt myself badly on things like these because my uncle had a huge farm with large steep hills in which to randomly go down on things like bikes, go carts and one time one of these pedal cars, which flipped end over end on the way down.
Nobody has commented on those prices! OMG.
$18 for the Jaaaag! That’s like a week’s wages for my mom (only half joking).
That is $144 in today dollars.
I just remember mom complaining about buying me a new big wheel every year because the big front plastic wheel would always crack and warp.
Broke the metal steering column in mine. The neighborhood jousting matches certainly had nothing to do with it, nope.
Those big wheels were just blow molded plastic things. Mine never lasted long either and the front wheel would split at the seam.
And they would always have two flat spots because the only way to brake was locking up the front wheel with one of the pedals straight out.
Way back, a neighborhood kid had the Crest toothpaste big wheel, the “downtube” was shaped like a tube of Crest. This was like early 80s. I was way too big for it at the time but just remember it because it was so odd
Hah, that is an interesting design. Seems it was called the “Fluorider”!
LOL that name decades before the musical artist
I had that Jaguar! The front end got cracked when my neighbor ran into me head-on with his Green Machine.
Did you exchange insurance info or settle out of court?
Did one of them grow up to be a personal injury attourney?
As a little kid in the mid ’80s, I wanted a Cozy Coupe soooooooo bad. Dad insisted that I wait until we found one with pedals; seeing these examples makes me think he remembered seeing pedal-powered kiddie cars in a Sears catalog at some point. And here I was thinking that he was just trying to find an excuse to not have a plastic car fading away in the yard. ^_^
(I never got a Cozy Coupe.)
Are we sure the Pinto and fire truck weren’t sold as a package? I mean, if you have one, you’ll need the other.
You’d also need the Jag for rear-ending the Pinto to complete the fun, imaginative play.
I’ll take the Indy-Style Racer with the Gulf Gas Pump and Scrambler Helmet please!
Powerwheels from the 90s had terrible battery life and slow charging. I can only imagine how bad these are
Fortunately modern 12v batteries are pretty cheap, and power wheels with dead batteries are free
Now we can get into the Big Wheel vs. Green Machine debate!
I had a Green Machine. Hands down the way better machine. I was the envy of the block
Green. With envy. Not with machine, alas.
I’m still jealous of you
As a little nipper sometime around ’79 – ’80 I remember having the somewhat similar Yellow Jacket that I loved riding down the street (totally unsupervised, of course). The really cool feature I recall was the thing had a hand operated lever that would apply friction to one rear wheel and make it super easy to do spin outs.
No, it was an apple crate, but I think it’s clear that I turned out perfectly fine.