As you’ve no doubt guessed, today’s Ask has sprung from the current Cozy Coupe kerfuffle. David’s own little tike has one of the Little Tikes cars – in the traditional mustard and ketchup scheme, thank you – but I do wonder if Delmar (not his real name) will remember it, being a toddler at all. I’m quite certain he’ll remember the ride-ons that follow (certainly this one), however, as the tools of kid-mobility are core memories for most of us, I believe.
Great swathes of us had some form of Marx Big Wheel, I’m sure, or one of the many knock-offs of the original blow-molded trike. Older readers may have been first-owners of metal pedal cars, and many 70s’ kids logged plenty of wheel time in hand-me-down genuine sheet-metal machines.
I bet far, far fewer of you inherited your ride from Russia. Antti Kautonen:
My dad brought this as a souvenir from post-Soviet Russia, probably in 1993 based on the plates. It’s a relatively popular pedal car, often seen in worse nick than ours. You can hook up a battery to power the headlights, but I can’t remember if we ever did. The original steering wheel broke off at some point and got replaced with a random red one. I’d like to fix it up for my kid, but OEM steering wheels for these are hard to get. Maybe it needs a wooden Nardi wheel in kid size.
I love that! The ride-ons of my youth included exactly one pressed-steel pedal vehicle, but it was a tractor, not a car. And it was not as fun as the plastic machines in the stable I shared with my sister. We each had our own Big Wheels, but we split seat time in one of the craziest kid-powered contraptions of the 1970s: the Marx Wild Rider.
This six-wheeler was hand-cranked, and was a reasonable facsimile for both the moon buggies of Space:1999 and the daily driver of The Banana Splits. Each crank drove the middle wheel via a chain, and by varying the speed of each crank, the Wild Rider would turn as tight or wide as you like, or even pirouette. What a machine.
A much later arrival on the scene was the Green Machine, which later became a Huffy product. It was the bigger, badder, but ultimately (to me) less satisfying follow-up to the Big Wheel. It was very cool with its rear-steer setup, but not very comfortable to ride, nor as efficient as the Big Wheel at putting power into the pedals. So, not a favorite.
Definitely favorites: the Sears go-kart and mini bike that came later when I was nine or so. I had a single-seater kart, and later the yellow bike above. It was absolutely miserable to ride off-road with that rigid frame and fork, but it was a blast to hot-foot around the oval I wore into the backyard.
What Were Your Favorite Ride-On Toys As A Kid?
Top graphic images: Marx
This:
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a1/dc/09/a1dc09c721030fb74c95ed2155cb8eea.jpg
I was pretty young at the time of course. 😉
I honestly don’t recall whether I still have that car carrier… I might have Craiglisted it years ago but I’m really not sure.
I DO still have all three of those (Jeep Comanche?) trucks/wagons AND two Beetles as shown in that photo… they’re at the very top of a bookcase, just a few feet from where I’m typing now.
I love those old mostly metal Tonka toys… they just last forever even under hard use. Just the floorplan is plastic, and only on the Beetles I think.
One of my earliest memories is trundling around on a pedal-powered tractor in nursery school. It was silver-ish and the picture in my head is that the paint was applied with a spray can. It was not particularly light, and the track we rode on was a figure-8, much like the course at the Islip Motor Speedway featured periodically on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. I learned to be risk-adverse on that track. A driving habit that has carried me into my late 60 without an accident.
We didn’t have much money, and I think the most exotic thing I got myself around the backyard, back then was a red Radio Flyer wagon. I discovered the joys of terminal understeer on that thing, legging it down a walkway and then throwing the tiller hard to the right and scrubbing the front trying to turn left onto a wider patch of concrete before hitting the neighbors house. The cement had a substantial deposit of black plastic rubber and the wagon had tires worn down nearly to the rims by the end of that summer.
5-speed Schwinn Sting-Rays were cool, but that was for the rich kids. A couple of young friends had Big Wheels, but their rear wheel slides never matched up to the TV commercials. I did a handbrake turn in a loaner ’88 or so Honda Civic once and it was laugh out loud fun, but something I would never do to my own cars.My ’17 Accord has a handbrake and I only use it to save stress on the transmission’s parking pawl.
When I was a little kid I really wanted an AMF Mustang pedal car. They were sold by Ford dealers as a promotion for the real Ford Mustangs. There was another little kid in the neighborhood who had a Murray Flat Face Speedway Pace Car that I was very jealous of.
Had a lawnmower powered go-kart. Got the cops called on me for passing cars in the neighborhood, maybe at age 8 or 9? Good times.
I went from a basic big wheel to my first bike. Don’t recall having anything in between. My brother had the Green Machine.
I loved my Manco Dingos(We had two of them and my little brother and I got to race them around through the forest when I was about 6 or 7) but before those, my dad built me a mini top fuel dragster ride on car when I was really little. I used that as inspiration for a couple ride ons I built for my sons when they were todlers, I did a pair of ww1 style biplanes, one in british colors, and one as a red barron lookalike.