Made by Denys Fisher, Revrods exploded onto streets, playgrounds, and kitchen floors in Britain in 1970-1971. Made in Hong Kong for several European countries (as well as U.S.A.) the futuristic designs of the British ones came in four variants - Eliminator (lime green rocket-shaped land speed record style racer - my brother and I had this model), Sand-scorcher (yellow six-wheeled dune buggy - think Banana Splits), Blazer Special (red 70's style drag-racer with big chrome engine sticking out the middle), and Sidewinder (blue space-age looking jet-car with twin side-turbines and a driver up front.
This is where you'll probably go "Oh yeh!".
They had a large central gyro-wheel with a thick black rubber tyre and a cog built on to each side, you simply threaded the black rip-cord through either of the side slots and pulled with all your might and let it rip on the ground! "Scale speeds of up to 200 mph!" it said on the box. I know this because I've found three of the four British variants still in their boxes, un-played with! In the U.S they were called SSP's (Super Sonic Power) and came in around 20 different models with many more colours, they were marketed through U.S toy co' General Mills. I recently took one of these to work on a night shift, and with some home-made ramps, had a blast with my workmates launching it across the smooth flooring of a huge building...I am much much older than twelve too by the way :-( I filmed it on my phone too :-)
Revrods are extremely rare now, but the identical SSP's are readily available on Ebay due to their massive production numbers. Don't get hooked though, I've now got about fifty of the damn things in my loft!!
Do You Remember Revrods?
Do You Remember Revrods?