With their Happy AIr, Happy Plus, Happy Plus Air, and Happy Vario Dreirads [I'm guessing it's German for "three wheels"], German conglomerate Kettler is the country's main perpetuator of the primary colored hegemony. But as DT Adolphus, future founding editor of Hemmings Awesome Tricycle News shows us, things were not always so depressingly Happy.
Check out this funky old Kettler ride. That rear frame is just spectacularly skinny. Alas, the shape of that wall outlet tells me we won't be finding too many of these trikes on this side of the Atlantic.
What do we get instead? Airflow Collectibles makes a reproduction of a 1936 Sky King tricycle, complete with chrome and massive streamlined coachwork. [I didn't know trikes had coachwork, either.]
This baby blue one was in the window at Monkeyhouse Toys in Silverlake [note: Los Angeles, like Reference Library, is closed on Mondays.] At $200 in person, and $249 MSRP online, I'd peg this as a perfect gift for a prop-deprived children's photographer, or an indulgent grandparent. It's sweet-looking, but I just can't see it as the kid's daily driver. Not even the black leather be-fringed Road Hog Trike.
No, the first $300 of my tricycle budget is still flagged for the Anthony Brothers' Convert-O-Bike.
The Road Hog Trike and other Sky King repros are available via Amazon [amazon]
Or in person for less at Monkeyhouse Toys [monkeyhousetoys.com]
I swear, I'd posted about the awesome Convert-O-Bike before, but I guess that was just email [kidtrikes.com]
You are linking to kidstrikes.com, which is a spam site, instead of kidtrikes.com, which I think is what you wanted...
[d'oh, thanks. -ed]
Dreirad = tricycle= 3 wheels
That Sky king is pretty sweet but around here the JD Tuff Trax tricycle is king. Simple lines (so long as you don't mind the old green and yellow) and even my little brother can ride it.
That blue bike is flippen sweet dude. I would never pay that much for a little bike though.
We sell these at our store in San Diego. Pretty cool. We had the pink one in the window forever, we finally put it up high so none of the kids could try and ride it.