Added: 5 years ago
From: lucyhuto
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  • The voice of this commercial is that of radio "Gunsmoke"'s William Conrad

  • hard to believe this was amusing to kids.

  • I remember when these came out. Even though I was just a kid I knew damn well if I put this on my tricycle or bicycle I'd be ridiculed out of town. How to look like a fool in 3 seconds.....put this on your bike

  • couldn't afford this so we had to go with the playing cards in the spokes held by a flat clothes pin.

  • Dear Santa...

  • If it's Mattel....it's swell! 

  • Absolutely outstanding! I want one . .

  • I had one these on my first bicycle! Oh how I bet I annoyed the neighbors on Saturday mornings

  • I need one of those for my CAR! LOL.

  • there were some really life like toys out in the 60s.i remember getting the big brusier tow truck and the cox dune buggy with real engine.

  • they had some preety cool ideas for toys in the 60s

  • Comment removed

  • Or you can just put a bottle between a back wheen and the frame

  • Gad, does this ever take me back. I now wonder what the neighbors thought of the racket coming from these things. I just thought it was COOL!

    Thanks for posting this.

  • Fool your friends that your actually riding a motor bike that was once your bike.

  • Thanks for the memories. I as well had one on my Schwinn Spitfire (forerunner of the Stingray). It made you pedal harder, and longer. What a great idea to promote better health, and have fun at the same time. My V-rroom is long gone, but I still have the Spitfire. I never thought I'd see these again, but it just goes to show you that YouTubes only limitations are your imaginations. Bravo!

  • I had one of these in the 60.s!!

  • Had one on my tricycle. Cool. I had forgotten about the key thing. Thanks for posting. Looking for a Remco Screaming MeeMee ad - had the toy about the same time.

  • Had one on my tricycle. Cool. I had forgotten about the key thing. Thanks for posting. Looking for a Remco Screaming MeeMee ad - had the toy about the same time.

  • One of my uncles helped me rig up my bike with a chainsaw motor. It would haul ass, and it was SWELL!!!

  • I had this for my Sting Ray bike.

  • @photobart1 I had a Stingray also. I forgot the name until i read it here. OH MAN did that bike get put through the paces. I think the end of it was the largest jump i ever made and when i landed i broke the sissy bar and snaked the rim. Then i got my first "dirt bike". The EARLY predecessor to what they are riding now. Again, the end was a snaked rim from a jump and just finally outgrew it all. Great days.

  • gerald mcboing boing!

  • Yeah I'm sure the neighbors loved that.

  • I started out using base ball cards I would attach them with cloths pins. Then I discovered using balloons. The balloons were the shit!!!!! I would put a balloon on either side on the front forks and either side on the back frame total of four. Blow the balloon up and tie it then you would attach the two ends to the forks push the bike slowly at the same time you would feed the balloon through the spokes. Man..... what a sound that would make.

  • @balkster YES! Balloons are the loudest of all , gotta get them adjusted just right and the correct amount of air, and you would swear a motorcycle was comming down the street. I show little kids the balloon on the bike thing when ever i can to keep it going . I used two balloons on the front fork , really loud! lasted for 3 minutes or so, then tie new ones on. This was all in the early 1960's, what a great time it was!

  • this was the greatest thing every..... things were so much simplier then

  • i had that as a kid, wow..........

  • I remember these! But...I also remember that an index card mounted in the wheel spokes with a clothespin produced a better "engine" sound. ;)

  • @dadunham my thoughts exactly, i had this toy as well and aside for the temporary kool factor which wore off in a few days, an inflated balloon mounted on the spokes blew that soundbox away...

  • @oldschoolsituationz Damn, we used index cards; I never thought to try a balloon! That sound must have been AWESOME! Like having glasspacks! :D

  • We used baseball cards. Baseball cards that are now worth thousands of dollars. Oh well.

  • glasses not included

  • I still have 1 of these on my tricycles

  • Bless his heart,, so sorry to hear..:(

  • I'm looking for one on eBay for an "Indian" bicycle I'm building,, Awesome

  • Friend had the whole Matell Vrooom bike,had a tank and all the goodies,played with it till it broke then smashed the whole thing with rocks.....yeah he was good at that.

  • To all of you that left kind comments about my father and gave my story thumbs up, I am sad to report that my father passed away last evening in his sleep. He felt no pain and was surrounded by 5 generations of our family as he took his last breath. Once again, thank you all for your kind comments.

  • @ucbf1 I just clicked 'like' above and then saw this. My sympathy to you. My father died on Dec 3rd so I feel your loss.

  • @ucbf1 hang in there, amigo........

  • I had one of these in the late 60s. Man was it loud!

  • i had one of these,early to mid 60s my friends had them to, we all got one for christmas,the three of us would go down the road like a biker gang,we thought it was the greatest thing. i still have my key

  • this brings back memories,. I had one of these i got from my grandfather for a birthday present. One day it was gone from my bike with training wheels. Later I found out my dad pawned it for a bottle of old crow

  • I forgot I had this great toy - I don't know what became of it. Probably blew it up with firecrackers or something lol

  • If you like this, you should visit the museum of Vintage V-RROOM!

  • my dad would just clothespin playing cards on the wheel

  • I remember getting a dump truck one year that made the Varroom sound and would dump automatic...two red toggle switches, I use to get mad at dad every Christmas morning with the 8 mm and the spotlight, we have our Christmases on DVD's now and dad is gone now. We had a great childhood and a wonderful mom and dad. Thanks dad for doing that each Christmas morning....Thanks mom and dad for giving my brother and I a wonderful life., Blessings to each of you.

  • we just used pop cans

  • Neat!! I Remember getting this for a Birthday present!! But it must of been about 1973, Not sure how long they sold, I still remember it well,, I lost the key hiding it from my sister!! I was sad,,, Never did find it.....LOL ahhhhh memories!

  • the kid looks like he has to shit in the beginning o.O

  • It's so sad that toys like these are over ran by shitty ones today

  • For a long time we had a playing card clipped on our back wheel so it would flap in the spokes. That was cool for its time. Once we got the Vrooom motor that was really low rent. We were the envy of the neighborhood. Believe it or not we still had one till a few years ago. Could still be in the pile somewhere.

  • @Philinspaces I did the whole "baseball cards in the spokes" thing too! I'd forgotten about that!

  • Where they made just to make noise?They didn't speed-up the tricycle, right?

  • Tranquility Lane

  • 0:45

    He's such a bad little boy

  • That boy has a purty mouth...

  • those motors sucked!

  • Then they made the VROOOM II in the 1970s. "...it doesn't make your bike go faster--it just SOUNDS that way!"

  • i had one of these when i was a kid, they were cool

  • I guess I was 6, when my dad bought me one of these for my birthday. He installed it that evening on my first two-wheeler. (A red Schwinn "Torpedo", as I recall.) I recall it being really loud. (Well, at least loud enough to annoy my mother.) It used four D-Cells, which you could kill in a couple of hours.

    I can well remember riding around the neighborhood, and having all the other kids green with envy, and wanting to try it out.

    I never owned a car that ever had that much of a cool factor. *L*

  • Toys from the 60s and 70s kicked a@@

  • why is everyone telling their life stories in the comments?

  • @CheezyChewbacca it's called nostalgia............from simpler, innocent times ;-)

  • I remember walking outside one Saturday morning when I was 7. My dad was putting one of these on my bike as a suprise! I rode up and down the street all day until dark. My dad is in a nursing home now and doesn't know me, but everytime I look at him I think of all the things like that he did for me. I had a great childhood because of my parents.

  • @ucbf1 cool,i wish i had memories of my dad like that...

  • @antoniodemonio9 Thank you, My dad was and is my hero.

  • @ucbf1 thats awesome.now it will be my time soon to ba a great dad,tho i will not follow in my dads footsteps...

  • @ucbf1 awesome comment, sorry to hear abotu your father:(

  • @NinjaGirlRachel Thanks so much. My dad taught me the importance of being true to your wife and good to your kids. I try to live by that each day.

  • @ucbf1 My dad bought me one of these, too. He passed away in 2007 but I have all the great memories. We are lucky to have cool dads and moms!

  • @BongoBengie You are so right!

  • @ucbf1 God bless you and him. Been there too, miss a lot of the past that kids today have no idea about.

  • @ucbf1 sorry to hear that man. my grandpa is the same. atleast you have those memories

  • @ucbf1

    These memories are important. Many thanks to our parents.

    Larry, Taiwan

  • @ucbf1 i hope your dad is ok i lost my uncle from cancer same with my gramma to

  • @ucbf1

    I cried a little when I read that......not because of your dad but because I wanted a V-rroom but never got one.

  • @ucbf1 Sounds like your dad was a good guy. That's something my dad would have done for me back in the '60s too. He passed away in 2002, but I still remember him getting me a lot of those toys from back in the 60s and early '70s that he wasn't able to have as a kid growing up during the Depression. Sounds like your dad probably had the same frame of mind as did a lot of parents during that time. : )

  • @ucbf1 so sweet....i'm an older parent and we got our daughter a stingray for christmas...i'm looking fro one of these on ebay!....kiss your dad for me...

  • @ucbf1 God bless you for saying that and acknowledging it. I feel the same way. Fortunatley, we are not at the stage you are in at the time of writing this...but i fear for when that day comes. My Dad is and always will be my greatest hero. My Mom was the epitomy of the perfect stay at home mom who cooked and cleaned and took care of us kids and made a dinner that we all sat down for without TV. I agree too...i had a great childhood.

  • @slambo239 Love your comment. Had the same kind of parents and childhood in the 60's. Me and my 7 brothers were blessed beyond belief. I'd give anything to go back to that time and our old house wit the love,security it provided. What a wondrous time to grow up in. Nowadays Los Angeles is a terrible place.

  • @OldMrMemories same here, I DID have one of these when I was a kid, it was loud as hell, neighbors probably loved it...lol ...just like any toy though, it got broke fairley quick, had a "Jonny-7" too me and my brother use to play army all the time, yep better times back then in many ways....less negroe & mud-people infestation...then the slowly the neigborhood started to change, the negroes stole my Schwinn stingray, got another one, BUT that started my education of the negroe

  • @EvanQuinn07 are old people always rascist?

  • @BiliousPizza you know,that's a good question,I don't know,let me ask you a question: have you ever lived in close vicinity with negroes? and I don't mean the token one or two, I mean a negroe neighborhood? ...the last few years of my adolescent life, we did,it wasn't good at all, chronic thefts and fights (always 4or5 negroes together) 2 or 3 incidents of negroe"peeping" toms in the yard,looking through my sisters bedroom window at night or trying to,you call the cops,but the negroes has gone

  • @BiliousPizza getting off the bus after school...you'd get into a fight..that happened too many times, the negroes riding up and down your street looking for your sister, saying nasty things....and she thought nefroes were discusting too...she WAS scared of them

  • @EvanQuinn07 Yes, you may have been provoked to be racist, but that doesn't mean they are all mean.

  • @BiliousPizza by Definition, I'm not a racist, prejudice is probably more accurate....and I still disagree,knowing how the majority of a particular group is, and taking actions based on first-hand knowledge and COMMON SENSE, I don't think that's being racist at all ....YOU DIDN'T answer my question....Have YOU EVER lived in CLOSE vicinity of a large group of negroes?

  • @EvanQuinn07 Well....Yes and in fact, hey are all mostly nice. A couple of them are bad but you'll get that with all people. BUT(not racist here) it is however true that most black people live in slums, and have poor education,wealth, and tend to be "gangsters." That doesn't justify judging them though....some are quite nice

  • @BiliousPizza of there's bad in all races, from MY personal experience growing up, and into adulthood, working and going to school with negroes, it's something I don't think about, it's more like somethign I KNOW.....negroes are predominately a more violent race than others....Ex: social injustices happen to all races, but who is it you see rioting,looting and burning down whole sections of cities? yes...it's the negroes

  • @BiliousPizza ...think about it, the Japanese were rounded up during WW2 and put in internment camps in this country, and on top of that, you HAD Japanese-Americans Fighting in WW2...lol, after the war; did the Japanese riot and try to burn the country down? ...No, they didn't....

  • @EvanQuinn07 What's your point?

  • @BiliousPizza thats weird that alot of people think that way alot of black people i come across dress real nice, always have nice cars , and have money were as whites in my town live in trailers dress nasty & drive shitty rusty fords but none of that shit matters to me im just a regular white kid that tries his best the worlds a sad place sometimes people really need to judge others alot less and maybe things could get better, i mean even me i try to not sterotype people and i do i hate it

  • @EvanQuinn07 Even though your prejudice you sound pretty intelligent 

  • @EvanQuinn07 YOU ARE A RACIST PIECE OF SHIT.

  • @misspellt lol......the Truth hurts ....you mad? sorry 'bout that....LMAO

  • @EvanQuinn07 NO I'M NOT MAD, I HAVE FOND MEMORIES OF FUCKING YOUR SISTER AND YOUR MOTHER. OF COURSE I WOULD HAVE TO WAIT MY TURN....YOUR BROTHER AND THE BLACK GUYS WOULD FUCK THEM WHILE YOUR DADDY SUCKED MY DICK.

  • @misspellt yuck,yuck,yuck......Now that's a really Retarded comeback....lol  ......you Fail inbred negroe douche........and I don't even have a sister...lol

  • @BiliousPizza Why are you guys bickering about this here? What does race have to do with Captain Action?? HELLO??

  • @suzyrokits ...or I should say, this V-ROOM toy. Still not a thing to do with race! Was looking at Captain Action before is why I got confused.

  • Man, I would have given my right arm to have one of those! It was the envy of the block!

  • lol..i had something better..it looked like a bike generator..it screwed next to your front tire..when you were going real fast,you would pul lit`s chain..and part of it rubbed against the tire..then the siren would scream!! i found when i got near an intersection i`d be near enough to some cars..i`d peddle like hell..and yank that chain..lol many times the motorists thought a cop was behind em..and slow down sometimes even stop..good fun!!

  • I remember those, they should bring them back, oh yeah, I forgot..kids need to be glued to their computer screens instead.

  • I recently found one on ebay but the seller said it did not work.We used to use Ballons and baseball cards.Yes thats where all my Mickey Mantle cards went.

  • yes balloons worked great and very loud,like a motor boat sound ,no mufflers. You needed the long balloons and you tied both ends to the frame forks , they had to be twisted in a way that they allways had pressure on the spokes. alot of kids never got it right,but when you did ,the faster you went the louder it got.

  • Does that little boy have a disease? What are those spots on his face?

  • Ummmm....freckles?

  • Freckles? That sounds so cute. How come they are freckles on whites but on coloreds they are called spots?

  • Coloreds? What are coloreds? I don't know anything about spots. I only know freckles.

  • I need to dig out my VRROOOM and see if it still works. Last I checked about 10 years ago, It still worked just great.

    This was so much better than cards, I can still remember the day my brother and I each got one. Must have been 1964 or so Only wish I still ahd that Beatles "Flip Your Wig." board game.

  • Wasn't there a version with a siren?

  • Thanks SO much for this!! I'd been thinking about this little "engine" for a while now! Had one as a kid. MEMORIES!! Thanks for letting me relive one!

  • they still make these, now they call them hyundai's

  • @stilleavy Win hahahahaha

  • @stilleavy

    I would rather buy hyundai's than american made cars anyday.

  • I got one for Christmas 1965. It was fun...

  • Now all toys in America are Chinese junk.

  • Had one of these on my bike in 1966...sounded pretty cool (reminds me a little of a Detroit Diesel 6V-71 nowadays...), but I too recall the batteries did not last for too many "vroom-putt-putts" around the block...Thanks for posting this memory!

  • wtf lol that sounded nothing like a fuckin motor when the kid opened his mouth

  • I had one of these on my tricycle back around 1967

  • Does it still work ?

  • Long gone.

  • later they had the same thing but it attached to your handle bar and it had a throttle like a moter cycle, so you could adjust the sound and duration. We sure did have great toys back then. Anyone from So. california remember the helms bakery trucks? Good lord i can smell the donuts now.

  • Wow I Do remember the Helms Bakery trucks, They always smelled So good

  • Hey, I remember Helms bakery trucks! You would go inside the truck and the Helms drive would push up on one of the levers of the panels. Then, he would pull out that panel all kinds treats. I remember the fresh donuts!!

  • Oh do I ver remember the Helms trucks. I grew up in East Los Angeles(Boyle Heights) and me and my brothers would go ballistic when that trucks whistle would sound. By far the best fresh glazed doghnuts I ever had. The sixties were a wondrous time and i truly miss them. Where were you raised alexdelrio45?

  • I still have my VRROOOM and it works. Thanks for everyone sharing these memories, the 60s werre truly a magic time every Christmas. We did not have a this BS where you have to watch every word you say andj I say MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE.

  • lol, still have 1, saw a device thats being made now called a varoom box, u hook it up 2 your car engine, then install a speaker under your car, it reves in time 2 your engine, i saw a 93 tempo with 1 on it, he had 150 watt amp going thru 2 10 inch speakers, u can choose the car sound u want so this tempo was set 2 sound just like a hemi, when he would gas it old people would shit themselfs, the 12 cyl. lambo sounded sweet also, it was a great head turner, in sonic, lol!

  • I hated this commercial, I wanted one so bad! I never got one because my dad was too busy drinking and mom was knocked out on valiums. Good times.

  • Two words: noise pollution. :-)

  • Had it...Loved it

  • fantastic....

  • how many kids were disappointed Christmas morning to find out the "motor" didn't make their bike move.. it just made sound?

  • SOUNDS LIKE AN AIR COMPRESSOR!!

  • WEED EATER ENGINE MOCKUP

  • is that the voice of william conrad?

  • I had this!! I got it when I was 5 years

    old and my Dad put it on my trike!! It

    was cool!! Also REALLY LOUD!! :)

  • I never had fancy stuff like this for my bike. I used to cut up the lids from margarine containers and tape them to the bike so that they would stick through the spokes. The faster you went, the louder it got. Just like a real engine! LOL ;)

  • I got one of these for X-mas, 1963. It was for my bike, not trike. My dad hooked it up for me. I was the envy of my pals, for a time. After a while, the noise got annoying.

  • That would be so annoying.

  • My brother had that! That was COOL!

  • I remember kids tied balloons on the spokes to make it sound like a motorcycle.

  • I had that. We felt so cool when we rode our bikes with that. It was better then putting playing card with clothe pins on our forks. the cards hit the spokes for the sound. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

  • Hello, yes, I had one of these! I just loved it. There was this little hammer device that actually hit a small tinny drum that did sound just like a motorcycle.

    Mine was orange and grey!

  • I do.

  • is it gas or electric?

  • It ran on "D" cell batterys

  • I had something like this when I was little, but not as cool. It was this crappy plastic thing you put on the handle bar, and crank it like a real motor bike. It made this sound like a card would in your spokes, but louder.

  • that would be so annoying.....

  • That shit IS swell.

  • why would you need that when Micky Mantle and Willy Mayes rookie cards with clothes pins would do the same thing ?

  • LMAO

  • 1964

  • I had one of these when they first came out on my Stingray. Everyone wanted to ride it. The batteries didn't even last the first day. I wish I still had both of them!

  • Bitchin cool!

  • LOL.....most kids his age would lose that key in 5 minutes

  • I couldn't find it when I opened the box! D=

    Snet for another one since there was missing parts... STILL COULDN'T FINE IT IN THE SECOND ONE

  • O man I wanted one of thosde pretty bad..never got one ...Its ok ill get over it.. lol

  • haha

  • We had something similar in the UK called Motor Roar, but no one else rememembers. Thanx for this Lucyhuto, I ain't going nuts in my old age : ) Us poor kids used lolly sticks in the spokes, held with clothes pegs!

  • its been years since ive even seen a kid riding tricycle

  • Wow does this bring them back. I had one, and it was great fun. But I don't think they had alkaline batteries back then, and all dad put in was those 'black cat' batteries-good for maybe 10 minutes. Used it off and on-so good for maybe an hour. Don't remember it having a cord-but hell, I was 6.

  • Yeah, Black Cat batteries. Those damn things would leak 5 minutes after installing them. I can remember many battery operated toys from the fities and sixties ruined after using Black Cat batteries. Junk.

  • We used to tie each end of long balloons to the front fender brace, then push it under while pedaling slow, forcing the balloon into the moving spokes. Man, talk about a loud motorcycle sound!! It was awesome! The balloons did not last very long, but while they did, it was cool as hell!

  • cool

  • Wow. My father could not wake up to the normal alarm clock, so after i found a discarded vroom motor in our dumpster,thinking that it would be swell on my purple spider bike with redline tires and sissy bar, and ape hangar bars, the motor found its way to my fathers alarm clock. He would still sleep through it. But the rest of the family would be wide awake.

  • I had one, but the batteries didn't last that long and when I tried plugging in the optional cord it got wrapped around my brother's throat...you should have heard the sounds HE made!

    Using old, rare baseball cards with a clothes pin worked for a while too until they wore out...now those cards are worth thousands and the VROOM motor was so much cheaper in comparision...

  • lol, wonder why those are not still selling?

  • They found out they would not mount on Big Wheels.

  • OMG!!! I want one now!!!LOL!!

  • I used my mouth the make the v-rroom sound worked for me, and yes i got a little light headed a few times and crashed but it was fun.

  • I remember these! Didn't really do much to pimp out a trike... lol

  • I was so happy to replace the playing cards and clothes pins on my spokes with this baby...

  • Totally Swell!!! All us boys had one on our block!!!

  • that commercial came out in 1963

  • i put cans in the tire

  • I had one of these in 1968!

  • So did I,weren't The 60's great?