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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. |