There was a ride-on toy a friend’s grandmother called a ‘skat car’. It was moved by pumping mini-bike-style handlebars forward and backward.
Does anyone remember this thing? How was it steered?
Doesn’t ‘skat’ mean something rather… sexual and messy?
Like, as a specific example, a certain episode involving a single recepticle for liquid and a multiple of human females not using the liquid receptical for it’s intended purpose.
Could’ve been ‘scat’ – which has a scatological connotation – but in thise case it means ‘to go away hastily; leave at once’.
I had a toy car called a scat car, but it had 2 pedals that you pushed with your feet for power, and it had a steering wheel for, you know, steering. It was basically a red metal tubular frame with a seat, wheels, and mechanicals. No sheet metal to imitate an adult vehicle. Plus it had two swingout footrests for coasting (presumably if you hit a big downhill section).
I had that too! Mid-1960’s.
I don’t recall if Scat-Car was a brand name or not.
Was it anything like This
A friend had one back when we were youngsters, I’m talking 1952 here.
I don’t well remember. This was in the mid-1960s. But I think it had a stamped metal body that you straddled like a mini-bike. I’m pretty sure it was hand-pumped. ISTR foot pegs, but then how did it steer? I can only think that it had pegs on the front wheel.
The link I posted is for one you build yourself. The one my friend had, at least as I recall, was a commercially manufactured model with a steel tube framework. It was about the right size for a couple of eight year olds.
I remember these form my childhood. Some had one front wheel, and some had two front wheels. Both types were steered with the feet.
The first answer is the feet are placed on the front axle, and you steered that way.
When I was a kid, I remember two brands, commercially made. The better one was the Irish Mail, made right here in Anderson, Indiana. Its big advantage was that the drive could coast. That is, if you stopped pumping, the handle stopped until you started to pump again. The other kind, made a little cheaper, had a solid connection from the handle to the crank. If you lost your grip, the handle kept flailing away as you gained speed downhill, and you could get hurt trying to regain control.
I don’t remember that either kind had brakes, :eek: but you could slow down the solid drive one by resisting the pumping. It was about as fast as a little boy could go under his own power. Thrilling, but scary.