Automoblox - Wooden toy car
by Jeff Huber - 2008-04-26
Automoblox are a toy line that has been around a few years but is just now really starting to get well known. The Automoblox line consists of a variety of different designs of toy cars made with wooden body pieces held together by plastic connectors that allow the different cars to swap pieces with each other. The cars have different colors associated with them and different shapes on the connectors. These toys are cool for a variety of reasons, one is naturally enough that you have these super sleek high tech looking toys that have as their primary component wood blocks. Another reason is that they are designed in lots of small ways to make kids get more out of play than meets the eye, color and shape recognition, group play encouragement, etc. We also really like the idea that the toys are of very high quality and thus encourage children to take care of them since they can actually last a lifetime. It's rare these days that a toy is manufactured that there is a real chance that a child can keep until they are an adult and pass on to a child of their own. Automoblox strives to be that kind of toy.
Another thing we really like about the Automoblox is that they don't suffer from the all too common assumption that cars are something for boys to play with while the girls are off playing with dolls. They include little girls in their advertising casually and don't even bother to make sure the girls are playing with the pink cars, yes one of the cars comes in pink which is actually a really cool color for a sporty little car. The Automoblox also come in a mini size that is in some ways even cooler than the full size, but currently there aren't as many styles in the mini size as the normal size. The retail price on these cars is a bit higher than what most parents and kids are going to be used to paying for toy cars, about $35.00 - $40.00 per car or about $8.00 per car for the mini line, but these are toys truly intended to last a lifetime. The manufacturer promotes the idea that it is better to have one good toy than ten cheap toys, and if you think of it in those terms 10 cars at $3.50 - $4.00, or ten smaller cars for $0.80 each, well the math adds up well enough.