SSP (Super Sonic Power) Racers – Nostalgia Central

Kenner introduced the SSP (Super Sonic Power) range of toy cars and motorcycles in 1970.

Initially available in 10 designs, each vehicle came with a zip strip that spun a drive wheel (the “revolutionary new gyro system”).

Once spinning, the drive wheel would propel the vehicle at a high speed.

The original ten designs were:

• Blazer Bike
• Bonneville Bike
• Can-Am Racer
• Dune-Digger (a six-wheeled dune buggy with a roll bar)
• Eliminator
• Laker Special (resembled a rocket vehicle built for land-speed record attempts)
• Siamese Slingshot
• Sidewinder (a jet-propelled dragster)
• Ski-Baller (a drag-racing snowmobile)
• Tee-Riffic (a drag racer based on an old Model-T Ford)

The SSP range expanded throughout the 1970s with more individual vehicles and the introduction of special multi-vehicle sets, such as the Cycle Stunt Set (which contained modified versions of the Blazer Bike and Bonneville Bike), the Time Trial Set, 4-N-1 Collectors Racing Set, and Smash-up Derby Sets, which came with two ramps and two different models of cars.

The cars had a mechanism in their front bumpers which, when pressed (by impact), caused their wheels, doors, hoods, and trunks to fly off.

There was also a range of ‘Mini SSPs’ and ‘SSP Pee Wees’.

The range ended in 1978 with a set of Star Wars vans, but SSP vehicles returned in 1995, produced in a number of lines named ‘Speed Screamers’, ‘Flash Force’, ‘Crash Pit Racers’ and a ‘Pro Series’.

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