The Pedal Car ‘Moskvich’ (Part 1)

Every Soviet preschool boy dreamt of having their own pedal car. In the USSR, according to different sources, the children’s cars were in production since 1920’s, but this toy gained serious mass popularity starting from 1960’s, when the production of children’s vehicles was set up at the automobile plant AZLK.  Among the all variety of pedal cars produced at different factories, the most popular one is considered to be Moskvitch.

The production of the second generation of this car started in 1973 and ceased only in 1994. It is believed that the number of the produced pedal Moskvitch cars was no less than that of its “big brother”, which contributed to the fact that these cars could be seen in all yards of soviet cities.  Over time, many pedal Moskvitchs became nothing but warm childhood memories. These toys became obsolete and fell apart because of poor quality of thin steel sheet, of which they had been made. Many people started to get rid of the 13-kilogramme toys, since they took up too much space in their flats. This pedal car was not an exception and was doomed to scrapheap.

There are two big questions for me: how one could dare to purchase it for the purpose of restoration and how it was possible to restore it, when not a single element was able to function in it. However, as the pictures show, all these took place in reality. The start of the second life of this pedal car can be considered the second of November 2014. On that day, a lucky man became the owner of the Moskvitch and brought it to the restoration workshop, where at that time the specialists were engaged only in restoring real retro-cars.
To be continued...