Toy OTD: Ahi/Azrak-Hamway Int'l Flintmobile (1974)

I love me some Flintmobile! It's one of the neatest looking cartoon vehicles, and it beat the Wacky Races cars by roughly ten years. I love the design, I love the sound effect it makes when it drives away, and I love that's it's the only car where driving it's about a million times harder than walking! You can't even turn it around without picking the whole damn thing up into the air. Fred may be overweight, but he's no weakling. One 'wheel' alone probably weighs as much as he does!

Anyway, here's a motorized version from the early seventies. This one's broken, so I have no idea how mobile it would be. This design preserves almost everything I like about the car - nice, simple shapes and appealing colors. The toy's proportions are also really nice - ofttimes the car gets too wide in order to accommodate all of the characters. That being said, it's too bad that Wilma and Betty got bumped, but you see Fred and Barney carpooling on the show a lot, so it makes sense (though if you follow that line of reasoning, Dino shouldn't be there). I wish Dino was poking through the soft top like he does in the opening sequence, but the designer's solution is still pretty appealing.

I bought this on eBay - since it wasn't working and not very old, I don't think it was all that expensive. On the other hand, it doesn't seem all that common, either - I can't find another one online anywhere. I think an eBay Favorite Search is in order, if you want this car!

UPDATE (08/05/09): Here's some added info from bfentworld@verizon.net:
"The car was meant for a table - when it got to an edge, a rod dropped down to trigger a turn/rotate in another direction, towards another edge of the table."

Toy OTD: Baby Puss Vinyl Toy

Here's another bizarre piece of Hanna-Barbera merchandise from the sixties. Aside from the shaved face, the color isn't as out of whack as many other toys from this period are. For whatever reason, someone decided that Baby Puss needed some accessories, and added a bow tie and belt(?). At first blush that seems really odd, but I guess it's no weirder than Yogi Bear being totally naked except for a hat and tie. At least the green works nicely as an accent to the yellow body!

I think there are toys for Fred, Barney, Wilma, Betty, Dino and Baby Puss (you know, the cat that throws Fred out of the house in the credits of the later episodes) - I don't know if there are vinyl Pebbles or Bamm-Bamm figures in this line or not.

These toys aren't impossible to find, but they're not particularly common, either, so I think they usually range from $70 - $100. There's one for sale at whatacharacter.com for $165, but they're not known for bargains - you may want to dig around on eBay for a while before you jump on that!