Vintage Classic Toys

Classic Toy - Evel Knieval Stunt Cycle - Vintage Classic Toy

2010-07-23T13:06:00.005+01:00

Evel Knieval Stunt Cycle
This is one classic toy that is almost more famous than the stunt-man himself!

For some strange reason, this was one of the best toys ever (even though I never had one. Awwwww). My cousin had one though so got to play with it a fair bit.

The toy itself consisted of a replica of Evel Knievel, his bike, and a red box with a handle. You 'plugged' the rear wheel of the bike into the box and turned the handle which spun a flywheel inside the box.

This made the coolest revving sounds ever and also spun the rear wheel of our Evels bike.

Once you'd got the revving noise so high pitched that every dog within a 500 yard radius went fruitbat crazy it was time to press the button and unleash the world's greatest stunt cyclist!

If you believed the adverts he then sped along gracefully and pulled wheelies, flew up ramps to jump over a carefully arranged line of toy buses and landed with style. On your bedroom floor however he fell onto his side, rode straight into the skirting board or scared the bejesus out the cat. About once in every 20 goes he did actually complete a stunt - and it was these 'long shot' odds of getting him to work that made the toy all the more fun. That and your imagination of course.

The Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle is / was a very cool toy and variations of it were also released. The stunt dragster came complete with a deploying parachute which usually got tangled up with some lego, and the stunt chopper bike was even less stuntworthy than the cycle.

For some reason though the stunt cycle holds the most charm. A true vintage classic toy!

Classic Toys, Retro Toys and Vintage Classic Toys

Classic Toy - Tank Command - Vintage Classic Toy

2010-07-06T14:29:00.007+01:00

Tank Command
This is perhaps a lesser known 'board game' that was released in 1975. Nevertheless I thought this was the ultimate in military strategy and glory way back when.

The game was for two players and the creators Ideal told you to 'Command Your Own Tank Force in This Strategic Battle Action Game.'

Before the likes of Battlezone or 3D Tank Duel - this was the ultimate in boys 'n their toys armoured blasting minefield action!

The box itself was enough to get you into full scale General Patton mode - and the instructions laid it out for you:

'For Two Players Who Have the Courage and Military Genius,to Hit and Destroy the Enemy.
Enemy Tanks Have Been Spotted. As Tank Commander,You Have Four Tanks and Ten Shells With Varied Explosive Power at Your Command... But So Does the Enemy.... '

The objective of the game was to destroy all four enemy tanks before your own were wiped out.

Tanks were destroyed by firing over artillery (you got 10 shells each to hide in your bunker) and forcing the tank(s) into a minefield area. A tank could be 'flipped' over by pulling a toggle string which forced a plastic piece to pop up through the battlefield base, forcing the vehicle out of the game. Your imagination added in the explosion, flames and dust cloud!

There were a lot of pieces to the game (tanks, shells, battlefield board etc) and once you got bored with it the tanks made a great addition to your toy soldier collection, making this a multi-use toy! ;-)

All in all Tank Command was a great board game back in the day and good condition examples with all the pieces are worth quite a lot of money now.

Ready, aim, fire!

Vintage Toys, Classic Toys and Vintage Classic Toys

Classic Toy - Big Trak - Vintage Classic Toy

2010-06-25T11:51:00.008+01:00

Big Trak
Ahh Big Trak. The truck that was chunkier than volvo estate and fitted with AI. The future had arrived.

Released in 1979 by those toy and electronic game stalwarts Milton Bradley (MB), Big Trak was the stuff of every schoolboy's wildest technological dreams.

This classic toy was a six wheeled tank type vehicle with an uber cool sounding front-mounted blue photon beam headlamp. It also had a keypad on the topmost part of the unit.

The toy could remember a whopping 16 commands in total. These commands could then executed in sequence, such as 'forward 3 lengths', 'pause', 'turn 30 degrees right', and so on. You could even get it to 'fire' the front mounted phaser. Take that Buzz Lightyear!

There was also a 'repeat' instruction allowing simple loops to be constructed - but the novelty of that soon wore off.

There was also the trailer as an optional extra accessory (bought separately of course!), which when hooked to the rear of Bigtrak could be programmed to dump its cargo.

You could say that Bigtrak was the pre-cursor to the likes of the more modern Robo-Sapien toy - and a comeback for this year (2010) is planned. So keep em peeled for a modern faithful copy of a truly classic toy!

UK Advert for Bigtrak:

Classic Toys and Vintage Classic Toys

Classic Toy - Downfall - Milton Bradley Vintage Toy

2010-06-17T08:59:00.000+01:00

Downfall MB Games
Ah… Downfall. Despite never owning this I spent many an hour playing it against my cousin. He would usually beat me too - but I always kept coming back for more.

That was the beauty of this vintage game - it was simple, yet fun to play and very addictive.

You had 5 red discs, your opponent had five yellow discs (or vice versa - and the yellow discs were green in some versions of the game), with the object of the game being to move all of your discs from the top of the wall into the tray at the bottom before your opponent did.

Each of you had cogs to turn on your side of the wall which had slots for the counters to drop into. But this is where it got interesting.

Both sides of the wall had the same turnable cogs, but the little slots that the discs fell into were in different places, so you never knew if by lining up your slots from one cog to another, you were actually helping your opponent!

Sneaky and clever eh?

All in all it was pretty good and solid fun. You could even this classic toy more challenging...

Each disc was numbered from 1 to 5, so for real downfall genious you could try to bring your discs down to the bottom tray in numerical order. If you failed you would have to place your out of order pieces back in the top slot again before trying to bring them back down.

Needless to say I never managed to do this - although I did get three pieces in order one time.

Funnily enough whenever my cousin beat me he always shouted 'Connect Four!' - a fact I remind him of to this day. It makes me feel less bad about losing most of the time anyway...

Downfall is still going strong today - so it must have something about it.

Vintage Toys, Classic Toys and Classic Vintage Toys

Classic Toy - Star Bird - Milton Bradley MB

2010-06-15T16:12:00.000+01:00

Star Bird
Ahh the good old Star Bird.

I never ever had one of these - no matter how much I begged my parents for one!

I suppose it was quite expensive back in the day (£19.95) so I can't really blame them!

This classic toy is a classic of 1970s toy design.

The most remarkable thing about Star Bird was its size. Forget running around your living room with a Dinky toy in your hand, this behemoth was a chunky piece of futuristic toy technology.

Once you put the thing together and stuck on every last space-age sticker the Star Bird was actually over 12 inches in length. That's right - enough to satisfy your space-tastic toy needs.

Despite never owning one of these vintage toys, I did get to play with one as Pete down the road had one - complete with the base and landing pad (sold seperately)!

Despite it's size and overall cool looks, the thing about Star Bird was that inside it somewhere was a motion-sensor which could tell whether or not the ship was diving (as in you were pointing it downards) or climbing (you were pointing it upwards) and generate either the climbing or diving sound effect. Truly amazing stuff back then. Boys and their toys eh?

Oh - and it had the obligatory front flashing and zapping lazer cannons too.

A truly classic toy that has become a vintage collectors item more recently...

TV ad for the classic Star Bird from MB...

Hello and Welcome

2010-06-07T09:19:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

I'm taking a sidestep from classic retro gaming here and looking at another favourite of ours from times gone by.

Vintage and classic toys.

From the ever popular Buckaroo and Connect 4 to the amazing at the time Big Trak - we'll be covering hundreds of the toys from yesteryear.

A lot of them were good, some were great and some were just downright weird.

So, if you like your retro toys and your weeble did wobble, then stay with us as we take another trip down the TCR track of childhood memories.

Cheers,

Mart.

Classic Toys and Retro Toys