I decided to count down the top ten toys of my youth that I wish I had today. Growing up, I lived in a large family, so some toys were hand-me-downs from older siblings (though we got our share of new stuff, too). Being the youngest son usually meant that I got all the old toys from my brothers (they had some good stuff). However, my parents were both teachers, so after outgrowing the toys, they’d end up going to the classrooms, where they would invariable be destroyed at some point. Ah, if only I had a time machine…

Anyhow, on to number 10, good old SSP Racers (and their associated spin offs). Boys like their cars, and the SSP (or Super Sonic Power) cars were pretty dang cool. Plus, like all good toys of the 70s, there was always an element of danger: SSPs were powered by a T shaped device: a handle on one end, and a long, grooved end, called the Ripcord. You’d insert the Ripcord into the gyroscope assembly of the car, then pull it out quickly to get the wheels of the vehicle going. You then put the car down on the roadway and watch it zoom away. You could also use human being as the roadway, and a rapidly spinning wheel can really hurt bare skin. Plus, that Ripcord could go flying if you weren’t careful and smack your eye or forehead. But permanent blindness and scarring were prices that we were willing to pay back then for our pleasure.

I recall this one as being my favorite: The Ram Jet, though I also had the Herk Action Set and the Smash Derby (which introduced even more danger, with pieces of the cars flying all over). Some of the cars came with shorter ripcords, I think, but since the gears were all the same, you could use the longer ripcords and stick it to the man. And the cars worked well on dirt, too: you could launch them pretty high with the right dirt ramps. Also, since the cars were all basically gyroscopes, if you held them in your hand while “powered-up” it felt really cool.

What’s weird is that I recall getting the Herk Action Set from our church. We used to go to a rather small Catholic Church (where my brothers and I were altar boys (our sisters were also altar boys)), and they had a closet of toys which was just amazing (and, before anyone asks, there wasn’t anything sinister about it, or, if there was, I got left out). One day, Brother Joel let me pick one of the toys, and I went straight for the SSPs.

What happened to all my SSPs? Well, most of the ripcords were eventually stripped, making it harder to get the gyroscopes going. The Hercules of the Herk Action set ended up getting melted at some point (magnifying glasses are cool!). All the remaining SSPs ended up going to my parents’ classrooms, where they were used as just plain old cars.

This site has some vintage TV commercials for SSPs, but I couldn’t get them to display. But SSPs were also advertised in comics!

Next time: continuing the small car infatuation.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 30th, 2005 at 11:48 am and is filed under Toys. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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