Radio Flyer Wagons Making Valley Kids’ Hospital Less Scary

Large mesh panels along the sides allow plenty of ventilation. The Veer Cruiser can carry two kiddos weighing up to 55 pounds each. Seats are contoured with venting on the backs, one-touch foot braking offers parental peace of mind, and the wagon folds up into itself for optimal storage. The Step2 Wagon for 2 Plus can carry up to 75 pounds and is easy to keep clean with sanitizing wipes or soap and water. We researched kid wagons from top brands and retailers, considering size, structure, and durability, as well as any extra features each model offers.

radio flyer wagon

The founder of the Radio Flyer® Wagon company, Antonio Pasin, was born in Venice. His family helped pay for his journey, and soon he was living in Chicago. He was a woodworker by trade, but had a difficult time finding work in that field. Eventually, after worker odd jobs, he saved up enough frozen ride on toy money to purchase his own equipment and began making wooden wagons in his basement. During the day, he walked the streets of Chicago peddling his samples. Pasin worked tirelessly and alone until 1923, when his wagon business had picked up enough that he was able to hire helpers.

It’s also home to a whole host of one-of-a-kind items made with love and extraordinary care. While many of the items on Etsy are handmade, you’ll also find craft supplies, digital items, and more. Character wagons – Popular characters like Mickey Mouse and Davy Crockett found their way onto the wagons of this era. These were various colors, including bright blue and yellow, and they featured the standard steel wagon shape with the name on the side. Streak-O-Lite – One of the most iconic styles, this wagon had a tapered design and an optional real working headlight on the front. Inspired by the gigantic, 45-foot frozen ride on toy on exhibit at the 1933 World’s Fair, as well as the streamlined styling of swift passenger trains of the era, the Radio Flyer wagons of the 1930s were sleek and shiny.

This wagon can hold up to 200 pounds and is recommended for children older than 18 months old. It’s well constructed, super-fun, undeniably beautiful and big enough to make a splash on Christmas morning. Kids can ride inside — the steel body is still built with no seams, so it’s smooth and comfortable — or cart around dolls, trucks, empty cardboard boxes, or anything else they find intriguing. Adults who garden also love this wagon, which can hold up to 150 pounds of cargo. Antonio Pasin, founder of the Radio Flyer Wagon Company, was born in Venice, Italy.

Since 2002, the company has produced plastic as well as metal-bodied wagons. The Hero Wagon redesign came about largely because the two organizations began to hear how hospital staff were customizing the wagons themselves to fit their needs, says Pasin. So Radio Flyer assembled a team of designers, researchers, and engineers to visit children’s hospitals and conduct interviews with nurses and families to learn firsthand about the user experience. These in-person customer discovery sessions were crucial to the product’s eventual design, Pasin notes. Before purchasing a wagon, consider its size and structure and what you’ll be using it for.

With the war over, materials like steel were plentiful again, and the classic steel wagon shape was back in production. Because steel was needed for the war effort, the frozen ride on toys of the World War II era were made of wood. The company redesigned the wheel bearings to be smooth and quiet during this period. A 45-foot wood and plaster statue of a child riding one of his wagons and set up a booth at its base, where he sold mini Radio Flyer replicas to fair-goers for 25 cents each.