Searching for... Plastic pedal cars.

[SAmadei]

You guys are likely not going to have info on this... but I have to ask anyway...

Many of my toys from the '70s (Stretch Monster, Ding-a-Lings, Girder and Panel) have gotten serious websearches to understand why they came about.

Sometime in the '70s, I got my only actual pedal car. My neighbor likely grabbed it from the trash around 1974/75 since it was already fairly broken when I got it and my father threw it into the trash around 1980 because even though I had long outgrew it, I preferred wheeling around in it as opposed to riding a proper bike. Yeah, I was a strange, car-crazy child.

I've been trying to find info on the pedal cars of the '70s, but everything comes back to vintage steel pedal cars and modern plastic cars or reproductions of steel pedal cars. I can't find hardly anything about '70s Plastic pedal cars. The few pedal cars I do find are very upright, narrow tired vehicles. The one I had was downright low-slung and it had big fat tires. I was fairly car-savvy as a child... yet, I was fairly sure it was not based on a production car. It was either modeled after kind of a hybrid muscle car or a Manx dune buggy. It was orange... but that only means that it likely started out as red. I figure it was probably made in '70-73... but I could be off.

Any links to "vintage" plastic pedal cars might solve the mystery of exactly what this pedal car was.

[balthazar]

I've sold a number of vintage steel pedal cars over the years:

1930 Willys-Overland,

1930 U.S. Mail pedal plane,

1963 Lil Skipper pedal boat, NOS,

1966 AMF Super Sport,

1968 AMF Fire Chief, and I still have available a

1965 pedal tractor, MIB for sale

but I haven't seen, nor do I remember seeing plastic-bodied pedal cars of that vintage.

Good luck!

[SAmadei]

They definitely existed... the plastic pedal cars cheapness is what killed off the steel pedal cars in the '70s. Plus the Big Wheel. I wanted a Big Wheel so bad... but just as I don't fit comfortably in modern cars, I didn't fit in kids toys very well, either.

I have a feeling that the early plastic pedal cars, being left out in the UV, simply did not leave enough material behind to spurn a following. You can sandblast and repaint a cast iron pedal car... you can sandblast and weld in patches on a sheetmetal pedal car. But plastic welding simply does not work as well, large scale. Plus on these cars, as I remember, much of the details were stickers... likely not restore-able.

I'm just surprised I can't find ANYTHING on the internet about them. I mean, for crying out loud... I found tons of info on Ding-A-Lings!

[balthazar]

I had a Murray pedal tractor as a lad, in looking at Goggle images, it seems it was the exact same one in the pic above, tho mine was orange with a cool Surf City wave decal on the hood.

Dad sold it in a garage sale right after I left the house, I wasn't crushed or anything, but he coulda asked....

You are probably spot on WRT the plastic pedal cars- plastic seldom lasts as long as steel, plus it doesn't have the same allure with collectors.

[SAmadei]

So, I recently found a possible lead/clue to my query...

I came across these photos...

This is apparently made by Empire Toys. Its not what I had, but its getting REAL warm. The tires are dead-on... note how wide they are compared to most pedal cars. Also, the presence of silvered stickers is something I had forgotten... my car had several of these. The rectangular steering wheel with the red horn button also seems VERY familiar.

However, this is not exactly right... my pedal car was orange... and it had more prominent headlight/parking light detail. Also, it had larger tail lights which looked like muscle car lights. I also recall it being a big wider... but my memories could be off.

I would say my pedal car was likely an Empire Toys car... but with a slightly different mold.

Unfortunately, the pictured car is still very much non-documented online, so I only garnered a few clues.

[wildmanjoe]

Something like this?

[SAmadei]

No. I've seen that one quite a bit.

Mine seemed like a cross between that dune buggy, but with muscle car clues... but it was a totally fictional car.

The fact it was not based on a real car, IMHO, is what makes it hard to Google.

[Z-06]

See whether this link is helpful. The website claims that most pedal cars were from one "basic" platform and then modified.

[Guest ashley auld]

My dad got a car that sounds like the same thing at a scratch and dent sail after x mas.

It was i think a red dune buggy with chain drive and it had wide plastic tires with tread.

i think it may have had a role bar at one time that was cut off. my step moms dad fixed it up.