[Vishnuk]

Firstly a frank admission not sure if this thread is apt or if it should be merged with some other existing thread (couldn’t find any), if something like this exists already then request the mod’s to do the needful.

All of us auto enthusiasts who have kids, would have noticed that they are born with the same interest and they have quite a craving for any car or bike they can get their hands on. And we keep buying them a lot of things to keep this interest growing & help them develop. This thread is about how I went around satisfying my junior’s curiosity.

My kid is just 2 and half years old and he can recollect all the cars & bikes we have in the family, much to the amusement of passers-by on the road when we are walking on the road carrying him. If he hears the thump of a bullet, he will immediately start searching for it and start shouting “Bullet, Bullet”. He does not know model names yet, but can recognise the brand logos of Jeep, Suzuki, VW & Ford. His favourite spot is in the driver’s seat / rider’s seat of a parked car / bike , he just wants sit there & hold the steering / handle bar, make his imaginary noises as if he is actually driving / riding & won’t allow anybody else to sit in it / near him. At times when I do have to take the car out, I have to convince him to move out of the driver’s seat. Most of his favourite toys are bikes / cars & he likes going thru auto magazines seeing the cars & bikes on them, rather than read cartoon books meant for his age. When I bought a Ducati about a year ago, even when he wasn’t speaking properly he would say “Ducadi, Ducadi” & wanted to sit in the rider’s seat every time he saw the bike.


Post this we thought of buying him his first set of wheels, a tri cycle. By chance we stumbled on this when we went around shopping for him at the Chicco store, never thought I could get a trike like this. It was a bit expensive at around INR 4k, but looked awesome and the Ducati branding was a big puller for me. He was super excited when we got it for him, his feet wouldn’t even touch the pedal’s at that time, but he just loved sitting on it and being pushed around, luckily it came with a seat belt & a push handle. You can line lock the handle and keep pushing it if you have roads to walk straight. But it does not have the option to change direction from the push handle and this can be a bit irritating when you have to change direction. There are much cheaper tricycle options which have the facility of changing direction with the push handle itself.

After he started reaching the pedals and could get on / off on his own, we removed the push handle & buckled the seat belt on the rear & now he just pedals through our apartment deftly turning around on his Ducati making sure that he doesn’t hit anything.


The below picture is after more than a year of use. The fit and finish is still top notch and the paint has not faded anywhere. Only the tires have worn out a bit.

His sense of direction and handling of that small tricycle was pretty amusing to me, now that he was handling it well, wanted to give him an upgrade. When I was a kid I had this pedal car, it was supposedly one of my favorites.

So thought of getting him something similar & started the search for a pedal car, did a lot of searches on Google &Team bhp using different key words like – Pedal cars, Kids car, Boys toys, Kids Go kart etc quite unsuccessfully. I did go thru the pedal car thread on Team bhp but there weren’t any answers to queries on specifically where we could get one of those, I also found that they were mostly classic collectables which would be worth a small fortune. I did get a few pedal go kart options on Amazon & First cry they were priced around 15-20K on Amazon (they looked quite good) and around 6K on First cry, but the pedals in those were like what you find on a tricycle which go a full round, whereas I wanted the original pedal car type of pedals. Only one online option I found, had the pedal’s positioned like the classic pedal cars, but it was way too plasticky and looked sad. Since online didn’t work, started with the offline search of all the big toy shops in my vicinity in Bangalore like Sapphire, Hamleys etc most of them had a good collection of electric powered cars but no pedal cars / go kart’s. While some of the electric / powered cars looked very good, I wanted only a pedal car which would give my kid some exercise & something which he would be able to handle on his own, so all these powered ride-on’s were struck off the list.

So I started stopping and asking at any toy shop I pass by, if they had pedal cars, this happened for almost 15 days without any luck. Someone said, that I should try in the cycle shops instead of toy shops & should try in the road near Commercial Street. I did go there, walked around quite a bit and luckily found a few but again they were all too plasticky and some looked kind of gaudy to me. By luck one of the shop keepers there understood what I wanted and asked me to go to the Modelcraft enterprises on infantry road, where I could probably get one. Excited as I was, almost ran the distance of about a km, to check it out. I kind of liked what they had on display and my son was already sitting on the kart trying to pedal around in the shop. So after a bit of negotiation, could have negotiated more but was pretty tired already and happy that we at least got it, settled for INR 2900. Apart from the tyres, it’s full metal, doesn’t have any sharp edges, can be easily repaired & they assured me that I can even get spare tyres, if the original ones wear out and the seat can be moved back to compensate for the child’s growth. It seems that they make these on order for supplying to play schools & have quite a variety of pedals cars which they can make on order.


We are quite happy with it and he is busy driving around the apartment now. Here are some more pictures. It’s pretty barebones and for those interested in customizing, it gives a lot of options, I for one wanted to put a front fairing, like the one which was there in my old kart. The painting on the kart and the finishing is just about okay, there is no cushion on the seat, there are no rubber paddings on the pedal, so yes there is a lot of room for improvement, mostly DIY.


The pedal mechanism is pretty straight forward and well put together.


Two of his vehicles together though you can’t make out from the pictures, the difference between them is stark. While the Trike looks neatly polished, well put together and awesome, the Gokart looks rough and tough, bare bones and may not be to everybody’s liking.


I was in a hurry to get a pedalled Go kart, similar to what I had when I was a kid, so obviously might have missed out on some of the other available options, in case any of you know of other options which are available in the market, it would be helpful to others if you could post about them.

P.S: I have no relationship / business connection with Chicco / Modelcraft. Just posting it here to help others in making a choice, when they want to buy something similar for their kids.

[GTO]

That is just awesome - thanks for sharing .

Originally Posted by Vishnuk

Firstly a frank admission not sure if this thread is apt

Anything with wheels is welcome on Team-BHP!

If he hears the thump of a bullet, he will immediately start searching for it and start shouting “Bullet, Bullet”. He does not know model names yet, but can recognise the brand logos of Jeep, Suzuki, VW & Ford.

When I bought a Ducati about a year ago, even when he wasn’t speaking properly he would say “Ducadi, Ducadi” & wanted to sit in the rider’s seat every time he saw the bike.

That is soooooooo cool. A BHPian in the making .

Ducati branding was a big puller for me

Ask your wife to take a pic with both your Ducatis side by side, and both of you on them.

The fit and finish is still top notch and the paint has not faded anywhere. Only the tires have worn out a bit.

Hahahaha.

Will add this thread to our homepage in a bit.

[centaur]

Just a suggestion here. You may want to think of cushioning the pedals on the go kart. I am not sure how blunt/sharp the edges are but having cushions would just make it a bit more enjoyable experience for the young racer. Maybe a rubber cover or cutting the horizontal member and having the vertical members drilled to have pedals similar to the trike.

[varunanb]

Looks pretty neat and RWD too.

I was in the lookout for my daughter couple of years back. Couldn't find anything exciting like yours. Hamleys had few models but she picked a scooter instead.

[Vishnuk]

Originally Posted by GTO

That is just awesome - thanks for sharing
Anything with wheels is welcome on Team-BHP!
Will add this thread to our homepage in a bit.

Thanks GTO

Originally Posted by centaur

Just a suggestion here. You may want to think of cushioning the pedals on the go kart. I am not sure how blunt/sharp the edges are but having cushions would just make it a bit more enjoyable experience for the young racer. Maybe a rubber cover or cutting the horizontal member and having the vertical members drilled to have pedals similar to the trike.

I did mention about covering the pedal with rubber in the post as DIY. Will probably do something a bit later. However the pedals are smoothed out and pretty blunt, so no issues so far.

[abeerbagul]

Its so cute that you and your son are enjoying the same kart at the same age.

The pedal kart is very tempting, I almost want to sit in it myself and pedal all around the house

After he grows up a bit, as a DIY project you can attach a battery and electric motors to the wheels and he will have a home grown Tesla.

[Thilak29]

Thanks for sharing at the time I am on hunt for something similar.

How easy it was to assemble Ducadi?

I am surprised that pedal car you enjoyed as a kid had proper pedal but the one now in sale has such basic part stripped and has metal strip instead.

Thanks for referring shop in infantry road, this is on my todo list for this long weekend.

[girishv]

Originally Posted by Vishnuk

P.S: I have no relationship / business connection with Chicco / Modelcraft. Just posting it here to help others in making a choice, when they want to buy something similar for their kids.

Can you please provide me the phone number of Modelcraft? Would like to visit them over the weekend as I am looking for a bike for my daughter too...

[Vishnuk]

Originally Posted by Thilak29

Thanks for sharing at the time I am on hunt for something similar.

How easy it was to assemble Ducadi?

Best of luck with the search.
The Ducati trike I picked it up from the Chicco shop in Indiranagar, I think they will assemble it, if you want. But I took it home without opening the box and assembled it along with my kid at home, it's pretty easy to assemble, will take about 15 - 30 minutes .
If you are okay with assembling it at home, I suggest that you buy it online, it will be cheaper than the store.

Originally Posted by girishv

Can you please provide me the phone number of Modelcraft? Would like to visit them over the weekend as I am looking for a bike for my daughter too...

This is the location of the shop,
https://goo.gl/maps/hwQv7fyrYjr
I can't recollect seeing any bike / tricycle's in Model craft. Do check with them before you go all the way. If its just a tricycle you are looking at, you should try Chicco or Firstcry or Hamleys for that.

[pinin]

Thanks Vishnuk for taking me down the memory lane.

I too had a pedal car similar to yours - many many years back. I think it was a brand called 'Tobu'. Heck, we could also open the boot (section with the number). Mine was number '3'.

Pinin.

[Tassem]

This is such a coincidence.

My son has the same trike and I was on the look out for a ride-on car for him! Bought the Ducati on Amazon and thought I'll find the ride-on there as well. But like you, I was disappointed.

Not any more. I'm going to infantry road tomorrow to get this! Being a DIY guy, the barebones look appeals a lot to me. And these days, it's rare to find something so simple and functional in its approach. I was tired of seeing all the psychedelic plastic fantastics on Amazon.

My mind is already buzzing with ideas! I'm thinking if we strip the whole thing and paint it flat aluminum, it will immediately look a lot better. Then maybe some British racing green panels with stripes or a nice oval number plate on the side. And some lights. Maybe a small tool bag?

I'm getting carried away.

Good night and thanks again! My son will love this.

[jpcoolguy]

Lovely thread . I am also looking out for a ride-on for my 5 yr old son and accidentally stumbled upon your thread and will check out on this here in Chennai.

And subsequently, I also found the "Mahindra Thar Ride-On" advertisement link while browsing web - below is the link.

http://www.mahindrathar.com/tharride-on/



This is from M&M directly and it seems that you can get this directly from the Mahindra car dealers, like how you book your cars.

The price seems to be little on the higher side (compared to other regular ride-on's available in the market), but there is no mention of the dimensions of the ride-on.

However, this really looks cool with the same exact replica of the legendary Thar.

[srini1785]

Hello,

Firstly , i don't know if this is the proper thread for this message. I just acquired this engine , which seems to be a small 20-30 cc unit. It is a 2 stroke with good compression and while i think it may be suitable for go karting, i am not sure if this engine is for that purpose. My first guess was that it is for aero modelling but i am not sure.

It is missing a lot of parts like petrol tank, pull cord , the magneto which provides the spark for ignition. My aim would be to build something around it. Since some of the members here may have seen something similar , i thought i would share it here and take some advice.

Note to the moderators : Please move this post to the appropriate threads.

[akshay380]

Guys im looking for a toy car for my son. Confused if i should get pedal or battery operated one. Anyone came across a nice proportionate design in a pedal car?