Put The Pedal to the Metal
By Bob Brook
Most people equate the pedal car with childhood and
the age of innocence, recalling the times zooming around the backyard
and selling lemonade at the end of the driveway. The pedal car was one
of those toys American kids would get only at Christmas, if they got
one at all.
Pedal
cars have been around almost as long as real cars. In the same way as
the motorcar was derived from the carriage, the pedal-car had its
origins in the tricycle. Iron tricycles, which already existed at the
end of the 19th century, were the starting point for kids’
cars; dressed up with a simple body and fitted out with an extra
wheel.
The first known commercially produced pedal car,
built in a cabinet shop in the eastern U.S., has a patent date in the
early 1890's. However, the names of the first pedal-car producers
remain obscure. Often it was the bicycle manufacturers who put these
avant-garde toys onto the market.
The first pedal cars were expensive hand-built toys
for the rich, detailed and finished to superb quality with all the
lights, handles and trim found on a real car. But around 1910, the
pedal-car started to gain popularity. Cars for kids now tried to
imitate grown-up cars in every way, and manufacturers offered pedal
cars resembling the real cars of the era–Buick, Cadillac, Packard,
Pierce Arrow, Pope and Winton–with every type of accessory,
including sloping windshields, mudguards, license plates, lights,
nickel-plated parts, bumpers, spare wheels, tires, horns, and padded
seats. Pedal car makers replaced wood with metal and color and
decorations brightened up the models.
The U.S. led the world in pedal-car production
preceding World War I. Not only did pedal cars appear of every type
and for every budget, but so did trucks, fire-engines, police cars,
and vans with small work accessories and even a car with its own
little garage.
After
the war, the car business got back into full swing. During the 1920's,
pedal car manufacturers offered many kinds of roadsters. Large fenders
came into vogue, as did polished radiators and radiator ornaments. The
pointed tail premiered as the chief characteristic of model racing
cars. But a new element helped give a final touch of realism to pedal
cars--electricity. In the few cases of early model cars which boasted
lights, they were simply fake ones, except for a few very
sophisticated models which were provided with small oil lamps. In
1922, pedal cars with electric lights running on batteries became a
reality. Though they didn’t serve much purpose, these lights gave
young drivers a feeling of importance. The whole experience of driving
became more "real."
It was a logical step to extend the use of
electricity to the traction, too, as makers created the first cars for
children with electric motors. Fortunately, they cost too much, thus
guaranteeing the survival of the pedal car.
In the U.S, pedal car makers freely used the names
of the big car manufacturers, while their European counterparts often
did not. In 1925, for example, the American National Company produced
an enclosed Packard coupe for children. Boycraft produced a spider
with the name Cadillac on it, while a Steelcraft catalog of the same
year offered Buicks, Nashs, Studebakers, Lincolns, Pierce Arrows,
Marmons, Chryslers and even Macks, given that it wasn’t rare for
catalogs to include trucks for kids. Whether there was a real car used
as a model in each of these cases is a point yet to be proven.
However, the names were there and served to attract the young public.
Americans called these cars "Juvenile Automobiles" or
"Wheel Goods Toys," a term that included any type of vehicle
for children operated by pedals.
Pedal
cars became increasingly more tempting at the onset of the 1930's,
considered as the golden age of pedal cars, and apparently not having
been affected by the Great Depression. The models of the 1930's were
larger and heavier than in any other period in history. Streamlining
began to take hold with American, National, Gendron, and Steelcraft
offering new designs. Makers featured artillery wheels with large
plated hubcaps, as well as hood ornaments resembling graceful works of
art. In 1938, Troy of Philadelphia offered a series of cars with the
characteristic wind-divider "nose," which marked a whole
period around the war.
In the 1940's pedal car manufacturers offered their
versions of military vehicles. Before World War II, the pedal car was
for rich kids. After the war, they became more common but were still
more extravagant than a hand-me-down bicycle or wagon.
The 1950's found designers trying to create fantasy
cars that had jet plane and spaceship themes. The hot rod also became
popular during this era. Pedal cars during the 1960's emerged with
decals and plastic trim and some could be ordered with a metallic
finish. Garton, Murray and the American Machine and Foundry Company (AMF)
all had a large array of products for consumers to choose from.
AMF
introduced the first "Midget Mustang" pedal car in November,
1964, when the real Mustang was selling like crazy. The all-metal,
bright red toy retailed for $12.95, about half of what a similar pedal
car sold for at the time. Each car, equipped with wheel covers, a
windshield, a "3-speed" shift lever, oversized steering
wheel, a "Rally Pak" cluster of gauges, white upholstery and
black rubber tires, had a pony emblem in the center of the grille and
the Mustang name in script with a rocker panel stripe on the sides.
By the 1970's pedal cars were becoming a dusty
memory in the corner of the garage as the bicycle craze had begun. Of
the product lines that remained, most manufacturers had switched to
thinner gauge metal and plastic pedals. The "Big Wheel" by
Mattel lowered the center of gravity on the original tricycle design,
combined with lightweight and low cost plastic construction. They were
so inexpensive that they could be replaced when they wore out or
broke.
The first pedal cars had a metal chassis, a wooden
body and wheels with spokes, sometimes with rubber covered rims. Young
drivers operated their cars by pedals and block chain, but gradually
manufacturers produced more with a mechanism operated on a system of
levers, in which movement was transmitted from the pedals to the back
wheels, just like on a real car. "Smooth wheels with roller
bearings, cantilever springs, and balloon tires helped propel some
pedal cars with greater ease," said Andrew G. Gurka, author of
the book Pedal Car Restoration and Price Guide. "Most cars
had a windshield, and some models featured working windshield
wipers."
Over
the years, manufacturers built pedal cars to reflect the automotive
styling of the day. Cars from the late Teens and Twenties had the
"Tin Lizzie" look of flat fenders and freestanding
headlamps. The 1930's brought Art Deco "Airflow" styling
with curving grilles and covered rear wheels. Forties styling was more
"streamlined" with aircraft overtones and less trim.
Styling changed often during the 1950's, following
Detroit’s lead. First models had bold heavy grilles and tall narrow
fins, but makers soon replaced these with wider, square fronted bodies
with dual headlamps and angle-swept fins. By 1960, pedal cars had
become more rounded and started to resemble popular sports cars.
The use of plastic meant lower prices and
contributed to the popularity of pedal cars but was also responsible
for poorer quality. The new model cars had little in common with their
ancestors of the 1920's and 1930's, which were notable for their
craftsmanship.
According
to Don Sindelar, a pedal car dealer from Saugus, California, pedal car
manufacturers marked their models with both a name and a model
number--a firetruck may be a AMF 508 or a locomotive a Casey Jones.
Antique toy collectors were the first to
"discover" pedal cars. Starting in the early 1960's,
collectors began acquiring mint condition examples found in attics.
Later on, "baby boomers" bought either new or reproduction
pedal cars for their kids.
"The most collectable models are the 1930s
Steelcraft cars--Lincoln Zephyr, 1938 Oldsmobile, 1936 Ford, 1941
Buick, 1941 Chrysler," said John Dott, pedal car restorer and
collector. "Foreign models aren’t very popular here in the U.S.
Americans collect mostly U.S.- made cars."
PHOTOS From top to bottom
Pedal cars have been around almost as long as real cars, with
origins in tricycles.
The 1950's found pedal car designers trying to create fantasy cars
that had airplane and spaceship themes.
During the 1920's, pedal car manufacturers offered many kinds of
roadsters with large fenders, polished radiators, and radiator
ornaments.
Young drivers operated their cars by pedals and block chain, but
makers soon produced a system of levers, in which movement was
transmitted from the pedals to the back wheels, just like on a real
car.
The models of the 1930's were larger and heavier than in any other
eriod in history. Special versions like fire trucks were popular.
In the U.S, pedal car makers freely used the names of the big car
manufacturers, while their European counterparts often did not. |