What was the coolest toy you had as a kid?

[cr8crshr]

2 items...First would be my bicycle as it gave me tons of freedom and pleasure. Second would be my Lionel trains which I still have today and has grown quite a bit in my adult life. Add to that my HO train collection and I'd say I am still well-loaded with toys!!! cr8crshr/Bill

 

[chargervert]

I have bicycles now that I wanted as a kid but never got!

 

[YY1]

I've posted Pit Change Charger several times.
Kinda crude but no mistaking what it is.
Interesting a 1975 toy has a "451 CID" callout on the hood.

That Lego train above is old school.
back when you removed the rubber tires to make train wheels.
I had Legos circa 1972 and had the first kit with "mii figures" the "LL924" space ship circa 1978.

Bicycle is borderline not a "toy".
Butt I agree it's a "game changer".

 

[HEMIB]

A friend of mine built a machine similar size to that out of an old reel-drive lawn-mower and a wooden frame. Made a track on their front lawn and would race around in it. This was during the time of F1 racing when it was still cool. Of course the blade had been removed first.

Had 1 of them the old Scott Bonner with a bike seat trolly made a hell of a noise on bitumen roads even had a spark plug in the exhaust , turn the choke on to shoot flames out the exhaust .

 

[gdrill]

Didn't read it all, but Daisy was probably my biggest source of excitement. Had plenty of CO2 cartridge units as well. Break barrels were cool. Getting a gun as a kid was normal back then.

 

[kiwigtx]

I grew up on a farm also...and one Christmas my brother and I got one of these each. Awesome fun in the front hay paddock......got to fly for a few hours all up before crashing endlessly grounded them.

I have spent the past 10 years tracking down these toys, as ours were long since lost or abandoned to the dump. Finally found two complete but used and one mint in box. All the way from the mid-1970's. Locally manufactured - these toys were considered very dangerous as they could take fingers off easily if the rotors caught you. And I suspect as mentioned above these would never get on the shelves today. They were manufactured by a small company not far from where we lived.

Heli-kite - what a great to that was.

 

[Kern Dog]

I love dangerous toys and the stories that go with them.

 

[kiwigtx]

I love dangerous toys and the stories that go with them.

These Heli-kites make a sound like a real helicopter when the wind is up to speed and steady. Quite ferocious actually....I'll try and film one some time soon.

You wouldn't stick your hand in that mess.....

 

[Speedbird]

Didn't read it all, but Daisy was probably my biggest source of excitement. Had plenty of CO2 cartridge units as well. Break barrels were cool. Getting a gun as a kid was normal back then.

Have not thought of it in a while but I had the Chrysler 300 of air rifles, a Sheridan Silver Streak.
They were draining some lakes and a swap behind our subdivision to build and we spotted a big water moccasin from up on a red dirt cliff siting way down in the creek.
We ran home and yelled at my father who said to get the air rifle and we all went back with him.
He hit it with a shot and we retrieved it with long stick. It was still moving and almost touching the ground. (We weren't that big, I guess.)
We laid it across a telephone pole in a neighbor's back yard and cut it open with an axe to find it had been eating fish coming down the creek from the drainage.
The neighbor's boys were the brains behind the dissection. That was their thing. Find toads, put them under with alcohol and dissect them. They had a kit for that.
One time they sewed one back up. It was not a successful surgery. Ended it with a brick.

 

[YY1]

Fun starts at 7:30

 

[Richard Cranium]

Fun starts at 7:30

The video ends at 7:30.

 

[YY1]

Sorry- 1;30 My First "Saw Blade Shooter".

 

[Brewzer67]

SSP racers

View attachment 1712613View attachment 1712614

The Laker Special was the fastest and straightest tracking of all of them. At one point I had all of them but kept going back to the Laker Special as my go to for winning races against my friends. The Black Widow was the worst. All it did was get the speed wobbles and then roll over on its side.

 

[padam]

These Heli-kites make a sound like a real helicopter when the wind is up to speed and steady. Quite ferocious actually....I'll try and film one some time soon.

You wouldn't stick your hand in that mess.....

Maybe YOU wouldn’t, but I know a guy that almost cut the end of his finger off by sticking it into a CNC lathe cooling fan.

 

[68gtxman]

Multi-pistol 09!

 

[64BEL]

Fun starts at 7:30

Back when Letterman was funny. I like the part where the guy sets his hair on fire.

 

[Detective D]

Estes got a lot of my older brother and my Christmas and birthday money


We had about 7-8 different ones, one called the hornet that was like 5" tall and accepted a full size engine, "Excalibur" that was 6' tall lol, a few others we built. I made one by hand for 4H one year. Carved the nose out of bottle corks and everything.

Transformers were big when I was young, I had a few of the original cast metal ones and one set of the green construction ones that you could combine into one giant robot. Matchbox was cool, but then cars that turned into robots? Sign me up!
That spurred me into model building for a winter time project and then onto the rockets with my brother.

Lots of bikes. Learned on a hand me down "banana seat" bike as we called them, it was a 70's model with the big old chopper style handle bars. not exactly ideal to learn on, on the farm with a gravel drive lol. But I moved on to a BMX, a Huffy Blue Thunder my grandparents gave my older brother for Christmas:

Bike was amazing could take it anywhere, that giant crank gave you a lot of leverage! Granduated to a mountain bike of my own as i got older.

 

[chargervert]

My toys take up a lot more space now a days!

 

[YY1]

Estes got a lot of my older brother and my Christmas and birthday money


We had about 7-8 different ones, one called the hornet that was like 5" tall and accepted a full size engine, "Excalibur" that was 6' tall lol, a few others we built. I made one by hand for 4H one year. Carved the nose out of bottle corks and everything.

Transformers were big when I was young, I had a few of the original cast metal ones and one set of the green construction ones that you could combine into one giant robot. Matchbox was cool, but then cars that turned into robots? Sign me up!
That spurred me into model building for a winter time project and then onto the rockets with my brother.

Lots of bikes. Learned on a hand me down "banana seat" bike as we called them, it was a 70's model with the big old chopper style handle bars. not exactly ideal to learn on, on the farm with a gravel drive lol. But I moved on to a BMX, a Huffy Blue Thunder my grandparents gave my older brother for Christmas:
View attachment 1713861
Bike was amazing could take it anywhere, that giant crank gave you a lot of leverage! Granduated to a mountain bike of my own as i got older.

That's a "Z2" two speed.
Top of the Huffy "Pro" line.
Pro I- standard, coaster brake yellow/blue
Pro II- freewheel, white/red
Pro III- freewheel, chrome frame
Pro IV- licensed "MotoMags" black/yellow

I had one.
The crank bent the first time I jumped.
Had to buy a Takagi cr-mo replacement.
Pedals fell apart.
Replaced with KKT.
Forks bent.
Replaced with Tange.
Handlebars bent.
Replaced with Red Line.
Gooseneck broke.
Replaced with Sun Tour.
Broke again.
Bike Shop gave me a prototype.
2 speed not legal in sanctioned racing.
Replaced front gear.
Could not afford to replace freewheel.
Factory was "free-hub" and only 14 teeth.
Had to make do with 42-14 gearing instead of the 44-16 I really needed.
Frame finally broke.
Replaced with used Team Mongoose peeled to nickel.
Still had that dang 14 tooth freehub on it when I outgrew it.

 

[YY1]

That looks like slightly later lineup, which changed over the decade.