On one of the other websites I frequent, I started a thread about the ride-on toys that I had as a child. I thought folks here might appreciate the material, which gets into some long-forgotten stuff.
Here's what I had:
Red pedal car made in Italy. The hard plastic seat was prone to cracking where the two bolts mounted to the tubing. Wheels / tires were not great, so my dad replaced these wire ones with some lawn mower wheels on the one I had:
Eldon 'Hot Foot' battery-operated. Cool as hell, but the battery failed after a few charges and we could not locate another one for some reason:
'Big Wheel' by Marx:
'The Pioneer #49' train by Marx. They had a gold plastic accordion apparatus on the underside that, when you pushed the gold plunger on the topside, would make a fairly realistic old-time train whistle sound. Some had a red-colored accordion on the underside:
I had a LifeSaver's ride-on toy that was evidently inspired by this:
The toy was quite basic....a big gray tube with an oversized rainbow LifeSaver's label, white plastic wheels, and a white handle. It was quite unstable and would dump you on your butt very easily! Haven't found any photos yet.
I also haven't found a photo of a tricycle like I had, but will add a post when / if I do. I also had a Radio Flyer red wagon.
I found images of something else that I had....a hand-me-down one of these. Taylor Tot stroller / walker. Mine did not have the push handle on the back or the floor pan. They had been removed. Without that stuff, I could just get in and go like hell.
Many of them were just open-wheel versions, but mine had the fenders like you see here:
With some bloodhound-style detective work, LOL, I found out the story about the Life Savers toy. In the late '60s and early '70s, The Worcester Toy Company, in Massachusetts, made a whole line of 'pop art' ride-on toys. They were sort of the Andy Warhol of toys. I came across an image of the Heinz pickle and the style of the handle looked very familiar. That's all it took to track down the rest. Here are some catalog images from back in the day. Although I have not found an image of the Life Savers version yet, the company saved some money by using the identical mold for that one and the one for Campbell's soup. Where that one is white, the Life Savers one was a silver-ish gray to represent the foil on the candy roll. The handle and wheels on the Life Savers roll were white, where the Campbell's are blue. The Life Savers had its rainbow stripe label where the Campbell's has the soup can label. If you look closely, you will notice that the ends of the Campbell's soup toy have a pattern. That was to represent the folds on the ends of the Life Savers foil and shows that the company did not bother to change that for the soup can. The Life Savers came first and to cut costs they just used the very same mold. In both cases, the labels were just thin plastic sheets glued on to the polyethylene bodies. The first catalog page is from 1971 and the second is from 1972. Notice that the style of all of the wheels was changed. I believe that was done because of the instability caused by the earlier wheels. My Life Savers version was earlier and had the white wheels like you see on the earlier Heinz ketchup bottle. Based on the black and white ad, which has the updated wheels on the Heinz pickle, I believe that the wheel design change was incorporated circa mid-1971:
Here's what I had:
Red pedal car made in Italy. The hard plastic seat was prone to cracking where the two bolts mounted to the tubing. Wheels / tires were not great, so my dad replaced these wire ones with some lawn mower wheels on the one I had:
Eldon 'Hot Foot' battery-operated. Cool as hell, but the battery failed after a few charges and we could not locate another one for some reason:
'Big Wheel' by Marx:
'The Pioneer #49' train by Marx. They had a gold plastic accordion apparatus on the underside that, when you pushed the gold plunger on the topside, would make a fairly realistic old-time train whistle sound. Some had a red-colored accordion on the underside:
I had a LifeSaver's ride-on toy that was evidently inspired by this:
The toy was quite basic....a big gray tube with an oversized rainbow LifeSaver's label, white plastic wheels, and a white handle. It was quite unstable and would dump you on your butt very easily! Haven't found any photos yet.
I also haven't found a photo of a tricycle like I had, but will add a post when / if I do. I also had a Radio Flyer red wagon.
I found images of something else that I had....a hand-me-down one of these. Taylor Tot stroller / walker. Mine did not have the push handle on the back or the floor pan. They had been removed. Without that stuff, I could just get in and go like hell.
With some bloodhound-style detective work, LOL, I found out the story about the Life Savers toy. In the late '60s and early '70s, The Worcester Toy Company, in Massachusetts, made a whole line of 'pop art' ride-on toys. They were sort of the Andy Warhol of toys. I came across an image of the Heinz pickle and the style of the handle looked very familiar. That's all it took to track down the rest. Here are some catalog images from back in the day. Although I have not found an image of the Life Savers version yet, the company saved some money by using the identical mold for that one and the one for Campbell's soup. Where that one is white, the Life Savers one was a silver-ish gray to represent the foil on the candy roll. The handle and wheels on the Life Savers roll were white, where the Campbell's are blue. The Life Savers had its rainbow stripe label where the Campbell's has the soup can label. If you look closely, you will notice that the ends of the Campbell's soup toy have a pattern. That was to represent the folds on the ends of the Life Savers foil and shows that the company did not bother to change that for the soup can. The Life Savers came first and to cut costs they just used the very same mold. In both cases, the labels were just thin plastic sheets glued on to the polyethylene bodies. The first catalog page is from 1971 and the second is from 1972. Notice that the style of all of the wheels was changed. I believe that was done because of the instability caused by the earlier wheels. My Life Savers version was earlier and had the white wheels like you see on the earlier Heinz ketchup bottle. Based on the black and white ad, which has the updated wheels on the Heinz pickle, I believe that the wheel design change was incorporated circa mid-1971:
