Hot New Toys for Kids Who Love Cars

In 1992 an industrial design student set out to reinvent classic, wooden car toys. 12 years later, Automoblox hit the shelves.

Automoblox invite children to assemble and disassemble, create and recreate race cars using wood and plastic pieces. The chassis come apart to make sleeker, faster cars and the roof comes off to create a convertible. The tires and color schemes can be swapped among several different cars.

They do have small pieces so Automoblox are recommended for ages 3 and up, but I waited until my son was 4 to ensure that he could build his cars without help. They are very well made and will last for years.

Made of rough-and-tumble plastic with big, noisy wheels, Caterpillar Junior offers an assortment of construction vehicles that includes a dump truck, an excavator and a Jeep.

My two sons, ages 1 and 4, have proved that Caterpillar Junior vehicles are super tough. The vehicles are big (up to 14 inches) and the kids bend down and push them around at a full run. The cabs are open so there’s room for LEGO men or even small stuffed animals to drive, and we’ve filled the dump truck with everything from rocks to junk mail. I can’t count how many times ours have been thrown down the stairs, doused by the hose or driven off road in our yard and we’ve never had a problem with any part of the vehicles breaking.

I’m a huge fan of Sprig, the Colorado company founded by a toy designer who jumped ship from one of the big brands to start his own, eco-friendly toy company. All of the Sprig toys are made from “Sprigwood,” a blend of sawdust and recycled plastic. Give them a sniff and you’ll smell pine trees!

Dunebug’s Sand Truck is basically brilliant. Disassemble the truck and the dumper becomes a bucket, its cover becomes a shovel and the grill becomes a rake. It comes with a Dunebug character and a pack of wildflower seeds so the kids can use the toy to plant a garden. These toy designers are really clever!

For around $20 you can transform your child’s room into Radiator Springs, the town from the Disney movie Cars. They will play for hours and hours, driving cars of all descriptions around the roads, train tracks and buildings printed on this three-foot by three-foot rug. We picked ours up at Home Depot, which also carries a Home Depot version of the rug.

Green Toys are all made in California from recycled water bottles, but that’s not the only reason they’re cool. The Green Toys Recycling Truck features bins for newspaper, plastic and aluminum and the back opens for toting recyclable cargo. We like to fill it with balled-up newspaper and the kids love to tote it around the house, making deliveries.

The Green Toys vehicles don’t have metal axles and the cars are brightly colored and extremely tough.

Billy Fun Wheels is a clever remote-controlled car for preschoolers. The controller is shaped like a steering wheel and the car turns when the kids "steer" it. It's very intuitive and my 4-year-old got the hang of it right away. He loves that the headlights really light up, and loves to play with it in the dark.

Two buttons control forward and reverse, and one in the middle of the wheel honks the horn. I found that it required a piece of masking tape over the speaker, but I do that to many noisy toys. It's a quick fix that makes Billy Fun Wheels fun for the kids and tolerable for the adults.