Please help, looking for old toy

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

When I was a child we would go to my grandmother’s house (40 years ago approx) and she had these toys that my brother and I loved playing with. I have been looking for them and cannot seem to find them, or anything like them online.

They were long drag racing cars, maybe a foot long. They had a large metal wheel in the middle of them that you would run a plastic “zip-strip” type of pull starter alongside where the metal wheel had a small grooved gear. You would then pull the starter strip as hard as you could and set the car down and watch it haul ass away from you.

Any idea what these were called, or what to search for to find them?

2

SSP Ripcord racers?

3

OUTSTANDING!!! Got it in one. Thanks @control-z

4

Loved those things. As I recall they made a hell of a scream when you spun them up.

Smash Up Derby was a variant. Good Stuff.

5

Awesome. I never got to play with the SSP racers, but had an Evel Knievel stunt cycle that worked with the same flywheel principle:

6

My brother had one. We set up a ramp on the side of the house and, I swear, we got it to sail 50 feet.

Comes wit’ ever’thing y’see right’cheer! :laughing:

7

I had several of those – a rarity in that it was a toy that performed pretty much exactly as advertised. :smiley:

8

I had the SSP that was a snowmobile dragster. IIRC, it had tracks in back and skis in front. It was blue. Loved it.

9

@Inigo_Montoya, you beat me to what I was going to post, complete with YouTube commercial from 1973. Prepare to be quoted:

I loved that toy set. Toy cars and smashing things-- a match made in 8 year old boy Heaven. I think I even saved up allowance money to buy extra smashup cars.

10

My granddaughter’s birthday is coming up and her dad has asked that we stay away from the video games, tablets, etc to encourage more real playtime. :slight_smile: They have enough of the virtual stuff to play with. Now that I have a name to look for I’ve been able to find these on ebay for not too much money. I may get her a couple of them to play with as a birthday gift.

11

Here’s an eBay search.

12

I did not have one of those, but I do remember my dad and I setting up a slot car set on our dining room table occasionally. You did not have to use special cars, as you could just stick something to the bottom of any Matchbox or Hot Wheel car and race them around the track. Does anyone remember those?

13

I had the Evel Knievel, but because the gears were plastic they wore out within a week or so. I tried to and then got a refund. The SSP Racers were excellent, though. Anyone get a tiny car that operated on the same principle from Captain Crunch? Hell, it lasted way longer than the Evel Knievel.

14

This sounds vaguely familiar to me: it sounds like the “Matchbox Motorway” system was something like this.

15

As I recall, they had metal gears cast with the metal flywheel. ISTR that the plastic T-handle stripped after much, much play.

16

I had the Snake and Mongoose Hot Wheels set.
Hot Wheels Snake & Mongoose race set. - YouTube

17

We had some “Screamers” toy cars where you would spin the flywheel by blowing air through a tube. Noisy as hell!

18

And there were those of us who crashed the cars into oblivion before the t-handle stripped.

19

I have to admit my initial response to the title of this thread was “Where was the last place you saw it?”

20

I had a BUNCH of SSP racers when I was a little kid; I loved the purple one. Had Evel too. They were awesome toys.