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Long before Wily E. Coyote and the Roadrunner took us on a ride into the wilderness, we had quite a load of wonderful action-adventure cartoons regaling us on television. This Children’s Day we take a trip down memory lane to see some six cars that ruled the cartoon world back then. What we are about to say is something which children who grew up in the 90s would be familiar with, but for those of you not from that generation, YouTube videos will show you what we are talking about.
The Flintmobile
The Flintmobile is simple; sturdy; easily replaceable and can accommodate a pretty heavy baby dinosaur. Fred Flintsone’s ride in the longest running cartoon series, titled, the Flintstones is what you could easily call a rudimentary car. An apt description would be two huge boulders as wheels held together with wooden shafts, wooden seats with animal skin seat covers and a white sail canopy overhead for the open-top feel. Doors, brakes and a floor was non-existent and the car ran courtesy Fred’s feet. Fred’s happiest exclamation when he drives is ‘ Yabba dabba dooo’! But the prehistoric family of Fred, Wilma, Pebbles, Barney, Betty, Bamm Bamm and Dino really did travel in style.
The Mean Machine
“Drat, drat, and double drat” or “Muttley do something!” should sure ring a bell. These are the exasperated claims of the owner of The Mean Machine, often in the face of defeat. The Mean Machine, from the Wacky Races, was part of the fleet of 11 vehicles all racing over various landscapes to win first place, in cars modified to unbelievable extent. The Mean Machine was driven by Dick Dastardly and Muttley. Like the name suggests, the car housed every weapon possible to aid the evil, pencil-mustached Dick Dastardly and his giggling canine companion Muttley, to get first place in the race. The purple, rocket-powered car also had the ability to fly. It was arguably the fastest car in the series, as shown by Dastardly's repeatedly zooming to a stunning lead from far behind. The Mean Machine is impressive to behold: it has rockets at the back, and spikes on the wheels. It also has a nasty point up in front, just to make it look as menacing as possible.
The comic villains from Wacky Races often try to tackle contenders who get ahead of them either by confusing them with a smoke screen, chaining them to posts or tripping the cars with a taut rope in the middle of wilderness, but unfortunately victory always eluded the duo, much like the Wile E Coyote of Wacky Races.
The Aerocar
The makers of the futuristic cartoon series, The Jetsons, back in the 1960s believed that at the start of the 21st century the human world would be paces ahead and technology so advanced that cars would be things of the past. They had expected flying saucers and cities established in space but the ground-reality is quite different now. However, what excited us about this cartoon series was the ‘Aerocar’ the mode of transport for the Jetsons family. George, the patriarch of this family used to take his children to school and finally zip to work in his nifty car with a bubble top. Parking at the office was no big deal for George – all he had to do was press a button and the entire thing folded into a briefcase, which he carried with him. A tool which could be quite handy for a metro like Mumbai where finding a parking space is a task.
Mach 5
‘Speed! Here comes Speed Racer’ the chant can never get old. The cartoon series also had a movie called Speed Racer. The star of the series was the swashbuckling Mach 5 , the powerful and most amazing car in the world, which
had all the controls on its steering wheel. Its unique aerodynamic design, coupled with its special devices, made the car the leader of the pack. The buttons labeled as A,B, C, D, E, F, G have various functions which make it any racing driver’s envy. Here’s what all this includes: powerful jacks, grip tyres, rotary saws for clearing wooden terrain, a deflector that seals the cockpit of the Mach 5 and protects it from water as well as bullets, a control for special illumination for headlights, controls for underwater travelling with an inbuilt periscope, and a homing robot for relaying information. Whew! That is one extensive list. NASCAR, Grand Prix, Formula One organisers, could we have a Mach 5 on the track?
Noddy’s car
A fictional character from the stories of Enid Blyton, Noddy, is a favourite with the kids. He is a self-employed taxi driver who loves his friends around Toytown in his little red and yellow taxi. The other toys can hear him coming by the distinctive "Parp, Parp" sound of his taxi's horn and the jingle of the bell on his blue hat. Often he uses his car to visit the places in Toytown. As children it used to be a treat to listen to Noddy go ‘parp, parp’ in his little car and it made us feel all grown-up and excited to think that driving a car would be as easy as that.
The Mystery Machine
The Mystery Machine is as popular as Scooby as the gang themselves and many fans have actually gone and modified their cars to look like it. The back is filled with various equipment such as a ladder lanterns, ropes, a bench running longwise can be stored in the rear of the van; the back can fit table and chairs, plus the walls are lined with computer equipment and a large antenna can be attached on the roof. Though it does not have any superpowers, it did have the best psychedelic paint job and was always present to take the gang out of trouble and even help them reach places to solve crimes. How cool would it be to see the mystery machine on the streets today?
