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Hands up who remembers this little beauty? Made in 1973 and marketed in this country by Ideal. This toy sold and sold for many years. "No Batteries No electricity" it said on the box and boy they were right. An energizer unit (usually red) with a crank handle on the side turned a series of cogs. When the bike with 5" replica Evel figure that did actually bear a resemblance to the REAL king of stuntmen, was placed on the energizer unit the gyro unit of the bike would turn and build up momentum. Eventually the bike would be launched from the energizer and propel itself for quite a distance.
The idea was that you could recreate Mr Knievel's famous death defying stunts. Place an object such as a jump ramp or burning hoop in the path of the bike and watch it sail through the air and land quite neatly. It did actually work too. You could also place the figure in a variety of positions on the bike, some of them compromising if you were able to steal some of your sisters dolls of a similar scale!!!!!! Brilliant, but whilst needing no batteries or electricity I can bet that when kids got this on Christmas day, by the time it got to the Queens speech they would have long since been told to bugger off somewhere else with it as it made quite a racket when you wound up the energizer. Continual noise of this sort would make even the most placid of parents loose their temper within hours.
This one is owned by my good friend Piley. The box is is perfect condition and the toy is in a well used state, though I think with a little attention and some 3 in 1 oil it could work as well as it used to. One of the foot stirrups is missing. This would appear to happen quite a lot judging by the ones for sale on US Ebay. Never the less the figure still sits quite comfortably. Interestingly this one has a YELLOW energizer. I'm not sure if this is rare? All the ones I ever saw in the 70's were red. The box art even depicts a red energizer. Any information on this? Please contact us.
When these pictures were taken for this page, Steve B recreated a snapshot in time of Evel's 1975 Wembley Stadium crash. This can be viewed by clicking on the thumbnail below along with a seperate page devoted to an "off duty Knievel". He always did like to score big with the chicks. This is not the end of THIS story either. Back in 1998 a firm called Playing Mantis brough out a re-issue of the Evel Kneivel Stunt Cycle which was almost identical to the original. There were a few minor discreapancies between the two toys but Playing Mantis did a fine job of staying faithful to the original. Unfortunately for us Brits the only way of getting hold of one of thes fine toys is to search the likes of Ebay and bid for one. Theye were never available over here. Why the hell not????? However, Our very own Steve B contacted a seller in Canada who had been advertising one on Ebay and asked if he had any more. There were six in this guys stock and Steve was able to place an order for three. Brutal!!!! Muchas respect goes to the good people in the US for their superb mail order system which even included an email with the image of our parcels BEFORE shipment and the speediness at which they arrived here. The order taken on the Thursday had one box arriving on the Saturday (Blimey!!!!) and the other box followed two days later. Images of the re-issue Stunt Cycles can be viewed by clicking on the thumbnails below.
1973
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1998