Here’s a TV ad, looks to be from the early sixties, for Red Ball Jets, a sneaker brand that promises they’ll “get you off like a rocket!” And shows a cartoon kid bouncing over a house! Not since Fred MacMurray invented Flubber has this even been conceivable. I suspect there’s a bit of exaggeration afoot! Red Ball Jets - YouTube
But wait! Go to your Red Ball Jets dealer and you can WIN… A pitch and field game (meh)… A Carvette Speedster (that’s Carvette, not Corvette, really just a bunch of metal tubing with wheels; wouldn’t you rather have a real bike?)… or - THIS TWO-PASSENGER GASOLINE-POWERED FX-100 SPORTS CAR!
Now we’re talking! Mom, take me to the Red Ball Jets store NOW!
But - hold on - is this a real thing in 1963? Gas-powered? Like, a real car but kid size? I’m Googling “Two passenger FX-100 sports car”, in all sorts of variations, and getting nothing!
Red Ball Jets wouldn’t kid me, would they? Even though it turns out you can’t actually jump over houses wearing their sneakers (so disappointing) - I still have faith.
Can anyone show proof that this car ever existed outside of this commercial? (Or even the “Carvette Speedster”? I’d settle for that.)
It seems plausible to me that there would be a gas-powered (e.g., 5 hp) go-cart with a fibreglass body.
Incidentally, there was a contest in the '60s to win a ‘life-sized Gemini capsule’.
So who actually WON the contest?
The answer is found in a contemporary issue of Boy’s Life magazine, which details that Boy Scout Robbie Alen Hanshaw, 13 years old, of Portland, Oregon, won the contest and donated the replica to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.
The prize was awarded via a sweepstakes type entry, in order to win; the winner had to agree that they would donate to a local museum for two reasons, (1) So that others may enjoy and (2) Because it had to be shipped via railroad direct to the donation site.
Ripoff! How can it be a contest if you have to agree that in order to win, someone else gets the prize? I bet Robbie Alen Hanshaw carries a bitter grudge to this day.
FAO Schwarz had similar gasoline-powered toy cars in its store (for thousands of dollars). And in the late 1970s, my brother and I were at the Volkswagen dealer with our parents when we saw a single-seat gasoline-powered go-kart with a fiberglass Love Bug body. We wanted it, of course, even though it cost (as I remember) hundreds of dollars, and eventually wore down our parents. So it went home with us. I have a photo showing the family fleet lined up on the driveway, with my father’s sedan on the right, my mother’s station wagon in the middle and our Love Bug on the left.
Evidently you’re too young to remember the miracle that was the Wham-O Superball. In 8th grade I personally witnessed the biggest kid in class throw one that bounced onto the roof of our two-story school. (Downside - they had a tendency to shatter into tiny little pieces if they were bounced too hard or if they were very cold.)
According to this bit of clickbait, Bugatti made gasoline-powered kids cars in the 1920s-30s.
I’ve sat in that thing. Back when OMSI was up on the hill by the zoo. It was mounted vertically so you had to lay on your back with your feet in the air.
Did Boy Scout Robbie Alen Hanshaw say you could get your cooties all over HIS spaceship?
I’d hope that at least they put his name on a plaque. “Robbie Alen Henshaw won this capsule fair and square, but they made him give it away which isn’t fair. You can sit in it if you like, just remember it’s really his. Someday when he’s grown up he will hire a lawyer and make them give it back, so for now don’t scuff it up or drip anything on it or get germs all over it.”
That room was where we waited to go into the planetarium for midnight showings of laser Dark Side of the Moon. Everybody sat in that thing, it had cooties EVERYWHERE!
I wonder if the capsule went with OMSI when they moved to the waterfront? Maybe Robbie got it back.
I remember this very clearly, and thinking, when I read that you’d have to donate it to a museum, that it was a completely bogus contest! I wanted to put it in my backyard so I could play in it, not give it to some frickin’ museum! Where’s the fun in that?
