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When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Or in the case of the Ideal Toy Company, when life gives you poorly-selling Motorific Trucks, make wildly successful Zeroids.

 

In the ‘60’s, Ideal’s Motorific Trucks were going nowhere fast. One thing that was going somewhere, however, was the space race, and newfound interest in space travel. Cleverly finding a way to simultaneously rid themselves of a bum toy, and jump on the space bandwagon, Ideal transplanted the engines from their Trucks into the bodies of futuristic looking robots they called Zeroids. They even came up with a back story – the robots came from the planet Zero, each with a different combination of abilities and a different color.

 

The Zeroids were introduced in 1968 and burgeoning astronauts were thrilled. The battery-operated truck engines allowed the Zeroids to move backwards and forwards on command upon a couple of treaded tires with a handy power switch. The robots all had cool “Z” names too – Zerak, Zobor, Zintar, and Zog were members of the “Star Team.”

 

Decked out in colorful, shiny metal parts, Zeroids had interchangeable magnetic hooks or throwing hands that allowed them to perform several robot tasks. The dolls were cleverly packaged in a “control station” – also known as their cardboard packaging – that was specially designed with a folding ramp so that the dolls could roll right out of the box for their first mission.

 

Zeroids came with all the accessories and playsets that young space commanders could wish for – Solar Cycles, Sensor Stations, Missile Defense Pads, and Explorer Modules. An Alien Zeroid with a special “Exploding Chest” came out in 1970, and the Star Team was re-introduced as action figures with small Zeroid friends.

 

All in all, not a bad way to get your science fiction fix – toy truck motors never had it so good.