In this room we can see toys that children in the past had to cycle, above all tricycles and cars.
Children’s pedal cars made their appearance at the beginning of the twentieth century and were the direct descendants of the adult car.
The first cars for children were handcrafted had mostly a metal frame, wooden bodywork, bicycle type spoke wheel, sometimes rimmed rubber and the traction was pedal with chain drive like any bicycle, but little by little another lever-based mechanism was established.
With the first specialized factories, the construction of increasingly attractive and refined models of pedal cars began to be developed around 1910 and to make them more appealing manufacturers introduced all sorts of accessories and improvements (windshield, mudguards, plates, lights, bumpers, spare wheels, upholstered seats,...); the wood was replaced by metal, the decorations and the colours enliven the models that initially were a little too austere.
The pedal car became the fashionable gift for the children of important people, but those who could not afford to buy these cars could rent them (the car which used to be rented at the Valentino Park in Turin is on display here) and the children could be photographed by one of those travelling photographers who once worked in the avenues of public gardens.