Mattel, Inc.

Walter S Nakano

Wayne R Halford

Richard S Chang

A miniature toy car for performing side-wheelie stunts. The toy car has a horizontally mounted flywheel with a vertical spin axis disposed near the bottom of the car. The center of gravity of the flywheel lies substantially in a horizontal plane passing through the rear axle of the car. The inertial motor uses a bevel pinion gear which is attached to the rear axle and engages a change gear. The change gear, in turn, engages a pinion gear attached to the flywheel. The orientation of the flywheel toward the bottom of the car helps to balance the car when it is performing side-wheelie stunts so that the spin axis of the flywheel approaches a horizontal position during such stunts. The sides of the wheels are made of a low friction material which allows the wheels to slide along a supporting surface and make directional changes during side-wheelie stunts as a restoring torque from the inertial motor keeps the car in a balanced position.

Miniature flywheel car for side-wheelie stunts

A toy car collision set (10) in which children attempt to crash nonsteerable unpowered cars (28, 30) at an intersection (12) when travelling in either the forward or reverse directions. The set includes at least two sets of tracks (14, 16, 22, 24) connected together at the intersection (12). A launcher (18, 20) is connected at one end of each of the tracks, and includes a piston assembly (34, 38) having a 5 to 1 compression ratio to be easily operated by a child hitting or pushing the top of the launcher. At the other end of each of the tracks, an elastic return means (26, 27) returns the launched cars along their respective tracks, if the car has not crashed at the intersection. The return means includes an elastic strip (52) stretched across the track to rebound a car striking the strip back along the direction in which it came to either strike another vehicle, at the intersection, or to be returned to the launcher for another launch.

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Manhattan Beach, CA, United States of America

Walter S Nakano