When I was a kid, all of our riding toys were kid-powered – Big Wheels, wagons, bicycles, roller skates, and skateboards… An “upgrade” consisted of a rope and a bigger kid to pull us, or finding the best driveway in the neighborhood to launch from. I’d say our parents got off easy here, because the longer and faster we wanted to ride, the more wiped out we were at the end of the day.

Not so for the parents nowadays. Battery-powered riding toys are big, and all the cool kids have at least one. A quick check on the Toys R Us website shows there are 175 options to choose from. One-hundred-seventy-five! The speed and distance that these mini vehicles are capable of are limited by their battery size. And it’s the parents that get wiped out pushing/pulling/carrying the unwieldy toys if their kid doesn’t make it back home before the battery runs out.

It’s not much of a leap then, to expect to see mechanically savvy dads (and some super-cool moms) modifying these toys to make them faster, more powerful, and just plain cooler looking. Just Google “modified power wheels” and the web is a virtual cruise night of souped-up creations, tips, tricks, and videos. But it was a tip from an lsxmag.com reader that brings us to this awesome video of young Samantha and Emily, with the help of their dad, converting their 6-volt Barbie Power Wheels Corvette to a 12-volt lawn mower battery. Click and enjoy!