Pedal Planet Prague Museum Mecca for Pedal Car Lovers

The Pedal Planet Prague Museum showcases more than one hundred pedal cars all cute mini versions of the real cars. The Jaguar E-type pedal car is the spitting image of the Jaguar car that was so popular in the 1960s. The legendary Porsche 911, the dream of many adults, with a top speed of 340 km per hour, is another little gem as is the more modest Ford Taunus P3. Germans safety and thoroughness is reflected in the German pedal cars having a bottom so that the children will not hurt their feet.

Museum Pedal Planet

The pedal cars are arranged on two floors.
1. Ground floor: the history of pedal cars and Formula I.
2. First floor: pedal cars from the second half of the 20th century, arranged according to their country of origin.

Pedal cars on the ground floor

The crown jewel of the museum is the Auto Union Type C produced in 2007 by Audi in an edition of only 999 pieces on a 1:2 scale. This pedal car is two meters long, has seven gears, disc brakes and consists of more than 900 parts. The steering wheel can be removed so that it is easier to get in. The Union car on display here is virtually new as it has only driven a few meters. Only the owner’s daughter had the privilege of driving it.

Formula 1 pedal cars on display are made in Italy and France. The oldest pedal Formula 1 car is the red Alfa Romeo 158 with which Guiseppe Farina won the first Formula 1 race in 1950. The most famous racing pedal car is the Ferrari 500, recognizable by its cigar-like shape, which won the F1 in 1952 and 1953.

Pedal cars on the second floor

The exhibition starts in Italy. Child-sized Vespa scooters with a mechanism resembling ordinary bicycles, Fiat 600 and the Fiat 2100 which could only be bought in Czechoslovakia at the time with Tuzex coupons. (Vouchers that could only be obtained with hard currency).

France is represented by a pale blue Citroën DS, a look-alike of the ‘adult type’. The Citroën Méhari, known from the ‘Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez’ films with Louis de Funès, stands parked under the miniature Eiffel Tower.

Pedal cars from the Soviet Union are copies of cars from the West. The Kroška scooter is the Russian answer to the Vespa. There is also a real Lada pedal car, the most popular car in the eastern bloc. Russian pedal cars are much heavier than those from the West. One of Italian manufacture weighs between 10 and 12 kilos. A Russian one, on the other hand, is twice as heavy and therefore more difficult to control besides the child has to pedal harder. Characteristic for Russian pedal cars is the license plate showing the year of production.

In later years, Soviet pedal cars were also made of plastic like the pale yellow Volga car. Only few of these pedal cars are left because of the poor quality of the plastic with the result that these cars are now collector’s items.

Record Holders in Pedal Planet Prague Toy Museum

1. The oldest pedal car Is entirely made of wood and in the shape of a carriage, made in Belgium at the end of the nineteenth century.

2. The largest pedal car Is the Porsche 356 of German make, used in German schools for traffic education and financed by Shell. The specimen that is in the museum is used for visitors to take selfies.

3. The smallest pedal car is paradoxically, the smallest pedal car is a truck: the Bedford Truck and popular in England in the 1950s.