Junior Promotional Vehicles Give the Toy Car Market More Variety

In the last couple decades, Power Wheels, or similar miniature clones of production vehicles, have become common-place in toy aisles of major retailers. But these pint-sized reproductions are nothing new in the world of cars. Not only were there the ever popular peddle cars of the 1920s and 30s, there were also junior promotional vehicles that weren’t actually toys at all in the 1950s and 60s. Check out some of these neat junior promotional vehicles we found highlighted on Junior Central!

Instead of being playthings even for the rich, like most of the original pedal cars were, the junior promotional cars were meant primarily for dealership use and were pulled out for promotional events and as advertisement ploys.

Having bodies that very closely resembled new production vehicles, the promotional cars were built to gain attention- bringing potential customers into dealerships that may not have otherwise been looking for a new vehicle. One way that dealerships would lure customers in was to advertise their promotional vehicles at primary schools, where they would give out “tickets” to test drive the model cars if the children brought their parents into the dealership later that day.

Unlike their pedal car predecessors, these junior promotional vehicles or “Go-Karts” were primarily for dealership use rather than play things for children of rich families. The price of such cars was well into the $300 and $400 range.

Junior promotional vehicles were made to represent vehicles from many manufacturers, including Ford, Pontiac, Chevy, Plymouth and even companies like Studebaker, Edsel and Divco milk trucks. Many of the cars (and trucks) were about 3/8 and/or 1/3 of the size of the regular production vehicles, although the size of each model varied on its year and model.

Just like original pedal cars, junior promotional vehicles are highly collectible, especially since fewer promotional vehicles were created than pedal cars for the market. If you have one of these very unique miniature car models, you’ve got yourself quite the treat!