19 replies to this topic

[TSR]

The BZ "Little Red wagon" was issued in 1966 and due to its immense popularity, is relatively easy to find today.
Unfortunately and due to how tall the body was, many now show body cracks at corners or sides, due to the extreme pulling of the material on the vacuum-forming machine.

The toy was produced with several types of wheels and tires depending on when manufactured. Most have the specially-produced Riggen "white-line" tires on black-anodized Riggen kidney-bean wheels, while Riggen "Magoo" tires are also found. The last issues used the same wheels and tires as on the BZ BRM H16 and Watson-Ford open-wheel cars.

In any case, they always came in these colorful pink card stock boxes:



The truck on front of its box:



A truck with the late-production wheels and tires:



This picture shows the truck with earlier and later wheels and tires. Note the "cam" decal behind the side window, not present on the earlier issue shown. This is because there was an additional small decal sheet inside the box but those were rarely applied by the customers.



The drop arm was spring loaded, allowing the truck to pull a wheelie every time the teen driver would punch his Cox controller when reaching the main straight...



While the truck itself comes up quite often, original boxes are scarce. There are some repro boxes out there, but some are truly awful, since they were copied from... copies! Not a good recipe for success.

A few pointers for collectors:

1) The motors are always white, with red and green Vinyl wire. They have a Weldun setscrew steel pinion, never brass. The spur gear is a gold-anodized aluminum Weldun screw-on item.

2) The guides are the white BZ unit and are often damaged or replaced by non-original guides. The lead wires are soldered to the braided contacts.

3) Wheels and tires may have been replaced by non original items. The wheels always have Riggen three-prong knock-offs.

4) I have even seen a Du-Bro body on a BZ chassis with the seller trying to pass it for the real thing. beware!

[Tim Neja]

Okay - the $64 dollar question - if they're in good condition - what are they worth??

T

[Gator Bob]

Very nice examples!

I wanted one of these really bad as a kid, to this day I have never had one.

IMO - The black wheels look the best and I like the full compliment of decals correct or not. The box art is a bit weak compared to the competitors like Classic, GarVic, Cox, etc..

Thanks for the history lesson.

When reaching the main straight...

The trick was to make it back around to do it again.

[Joe Mig]

The real LRW 1966!

[MG Brown]

And pretenders exist even today:

[Tim Neja]

Hey---isn't that a VW cab???????

[TSR]

This is why Mick says it is a pretender...

[don.siegel]

Did it ever come with o-ring front tires?

Don

[TSR]

Never. When you see one with the O-rings, it means that someone put the chassis from either a Ford GT or a Ferrari 275P/LM under the body or used wheels from either. First thing, look for the powerful spring on the drop arm to make sure that the chassis is genuine. Then the wheels are ALWAYS the same size all around, but are of 3 types, with 3 types of tires. The kidney-bean wheels can be plain aluminum, machine-polished, or black anodized with machined lip, or the smaller plain aluminum F1/Indy wheels. The tires can either be the Magoo or "white-line" on the kidney-bean wheels, always black foam glued and ground on the F1/Indy wheels.

[Slot_Grasshopper]

 The auction for an exceptionally nice one ended on eBay yesterday, even had the little decal sheet and instructions along with the original box,  Hammer price 4,050.

Attached Images

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[TSR]

That's a bit excessive... but hey, whatever.

[MG Brown]

Slot Car money laundering?

[TSR]

Hardly. Just two guys wanted that thing real bad. 

[MattD]

This whole auction got ruined by a fake bidder and if I get a green light from the seller I will put that info on here.

[TSR]

6***i(private) $4,050.00 30 Sep 2018 at 6:24:33AM PDT e***d(private) $4,000.00 30 Sep 2018 at 2:44:28PM PDT e***d(private) $3,500.00 30 Sep 2018 at 2:44:17PM PDT e***d(private) $3,000.00 30 Sep 2018 at 2:43:51PM PDT e***d(private) $2,500.00 30 Sep 2018 at 2:43:23PM PDT e***d(private) $2,000.00 30 Sep 2018 at 2:43:06PM PDT e***d(private) $1,500.00 30 Sep 2018 at 2:42:54PM PDT e***d(private) $1,000.00 30 Sep 2018 at 2:42:43PM PDT 5***r(166) $840.00 30 Sep 2018 at 12:38:30PM PDT 5***r(166) $810.00 30 Sep 2018 at 12:38:27PM PDT 5***r(166) $790.00 30 Sep 2018 at 12:38:21PM PDT 5***r(166) $770.00 30 Sep 2018 at 10:00:43AM PDT 5***r(166) $750.00 30 Sep 2018 at 10:00:36AM PDT 5***r(166) $730.00 30 Sep 2018 at 10:00:33AM PDT 5***r(166) $710.00 30 Sep 2018 at 10:00:28AM PDT 5***r(166) $690.00 30 Sep 2018 at 10:00:25AM PDT 5***r(166) $670.00 30 Sep 2018 at 10:00:22AM PDT 5***r(166) $650.00 30 Sep 2018 at 10:00:19AM PDT 5***r(166) $630.00 30 Sep 2018 at 9:58:01AM PDT 5***r(166) $610.00 30 Sep 2018 at 9:57:04AM PDT 5***r(166) $590.00 30 Sep 2018 at 9:56:57AM PDT 5***r(166) $570.00 30 Sep 2018 at 9:56:52AM PDT 5***r(166) $550.00 30 Sep 2018 at 9:56:45AM PDT 2***i(118) $500.00 27 Sep 2018 at 10:15:45AM PDT y***o(3654) $410.00 26 Sep 2018 at 8:49:11PM PDT 2***o(1927) $410.00 26 Sep 2018 at 9:14:10PM PDT o***o(1024) $400.00 24 Sep 2018 at 10:02:29AM PDT o***n(121) $389.99 23 Sep 2018 at 8:04:48PM PDT o***n(121) $209.99 23 Sep 2018 at 7:58:01PM PDT a***e(805) $150.00 23 Sep 2018 at 5:41:44PM PDT _***c(141) $101.99 23 Sep 2018 at 3:13:48PM PDT 2***9(384) $65.00 23 Sep 2018 at 5:24:35PM PDT s***2(866) $51.00 23 Sep 2018 at 4:42:51PM PDT Starting Price $50.00 23 Sep 2018 at 2:49:35PM PDT

[sportblazer350]

i snagged mine on Epay years back, i think from a model train dealer- sweet mint condition original. thanks for the detailed info P! 

[MattD]

Back in the early days of ebay, I always took a few minutes to look at new listings before I went to work in the morning, 6am.    One morning I pulled up a Revell  Monaco race set, complete and boxed, in good shape with two extra cars.   The extras were both LRW's.  I hit the buy it now for $125 as quick as I could.   

[TSR]

Matt, way to go! 

[MattD]

Guy's, that was back in the good old days!   Ebay hadn't become a price guide for every yard sale fanatic or house cleaner!    I'm sure the seller probably gave $10-$15 for  it all and couldn't believe his good fortune to make $100 on it so easy!!

[JohnnySlotcar]

2am one morning on epay I found a lot of 5 complete cucs including a Super cuc for $225 shipped! Sold them for $1250. I was a happy boy