Damn, real lights, switches, leather, adjustable seats, Real Tires (WTF). All the luxury I ever had was the hard plastic seats and wheels, and a blue and red light bar on my Power Wheels Jeep Wrangler: Police Edition. Hey, at least I didn’t have to deal with the “Prince of Darkness” on my tiny car. I just had to deal with real, life-like Chrysler quality colored plastic interior parts.

Spike Jonze wrote an ode to the Big Wheel for the magazine, “GO”, a merger of the magazines “BMX Action” and “Freestylin’” back in the day when he was just a photographer (Mid-80’s?) that was so cool. I’m sure I still have it somewhere…. It talked about hooning the hell out of a toy that would give your father fits trying to fix, because there wasn’t a screw or bolt or nut anywhere on it, just pressed together rivets and heat-welded plastic.

Man, I would’ve loved to have one of those. Imagine telling all the neighborhood kids about my new jaaaaaaag. It might be illegal to be that awesome.

Looks killer in Green

MiniVTEC

One of my fondest memories as a child was an experience at Toys’R’Us. My brother and I were with our father shopping for a gift when we turned the corner to the Powerwheels aisle. My dad tried to coax my brother into a fully functioning model (pimple faced part time employee neglected to remove the battery). Scared, my brother declined the offer to take it for a test drive. Overzealous I grabbed the wheel, jumped inside and floored it aiming for the end of the aisle at a scale 1/4 mile away. My 60′ was poor due to the plastic wheels on tile floor but by half track had reached maximum velocity. It was then I realized there would be a necessity to shut it down early due to lack of runoff. I turned to my Dad asking where the brakes were located but he was out of earshot. Relying on my instincts I slammed my left foot to the floor of the vehicle hoping it was the brake. This only engaged reverse…still on hard flooring. So my speed decreases slightly and I am now reaching the end of the track. I return to my gut which told me to turn the wheel, inducing a powerslide. I figure I can minimize damage/injury by distributing the impact across the gross area of the side of the vehicle. I slam HARD into the shelving. Realizing I may have woke the dead with the impact, I jump out and push it back the scale 1/4 mile to where my Father is watching/laughing. He throws the vehicle back on shelf and proceeds to quickly usher us out the door before management finds us.
Little does my Father know how many times that powerslide maneuver has saved my bacon in real life. All because we went to purchase a G.I. Joe for Cousin Brian…