Automoblox – Ambiguous but Fun Toy Cars
I have seen these toys being mentioned on both car-related websites as well as parental magazines, and I must say that I was a bit intrigued. First off, these toys were styled by a self-proclaimed “designer” which in and of itself worries me. You see, I have seen a lot perfectly fine products taken by these so-called designers and completely butchered, take the Bungled BMW 7-series for instance. What is wrong with a proper 1:43 model of a real car? I’ve had dozens of these growing up and I loved all of them. I still have my BBurago E24 6-series, somewhere – it is those toys have started my love affair with the car. So now, I look at these “designer toys” and the carguy inside me is screaming “What the hell is that!?”
I keep an open mind, you sort of have to these days so it seems. So I’m at this fancy toy store, with a uniquely European flavor, in Cambridge. I pick up the Automoblox box which screams of high quality and the obvious intent to market to a yuppie gen-x parent which makes me look in the mirror and quietly curse. I read the box, it says that the toy has won some award that no one has ever heard of. There is a picture of the designer on the box, looking all happy and proud as if he invented the rotary engine. The car on the box shows parts of existing real cars all thrown in together, not unlike the Hyundai Genesis Sedan, which has design elements Lexus, Infiniti and Mercedes models. And it looks like the toy comes all apart. Cool, but the question is, will my kid play with it? I bite and buy the $10 single toy Autoblox Mini.
To answer the above question… Yes! My two-year-old daughter, started playing with it; she took it all apart, and at first needed a little assistance putting it back together, and once assembled she learned to push the little “S9-R sport sedan” across the room. The toy is designed for children three-years-old and up, but my child, just like everyone’s child, is way advanced and clearly ahead of other children her age. Right. Two minutes later she was playing with a different toy.
There is one fundamental problem with these cars, and it is that having just one is utterly pointless. You, err, I mean your child, can only take each car apart and put it back together a few times before it gets old. What you need are at least three different cars, which would allow you….err…your child to take them all apart and re-assemble new creations using the various components. You won’t come up with any kind of car that exists in real life, but I guess that is the whole idea. It is not about mimicking the existing but to ignite imagination into “designing” something new, something that has not yet come around. Perhaps this is why today we see cars like BMW X6, and perhaps the people designing those cars grew up playing with toys like these and not the BBurago models like I have. I happen to believe that there is room in anyone’s toy-box for Automoblox, just like there is room for X6 and an FJ Cruiser in your garage, give it a shot, you may like it… both the X6 and Automoblox.
Check out automoblox.com, available at a fine (with uniquely European flavor) toy store near you.
Mandatory disclaimer: I bought these at a toy store. They’re mine. That is all.
