You'll soon be able to buy your kids a $500 Luke Skywalker Landspeeder
SAN DIEGO -- For 40 years, kids enamored with Luke Skywalker's beat-up X-34 Landspeeder have had two choices: they could play with a tiny action figure version, or they could sit in a cardboard box and make speeder sound effects.
That has changed with the coolest Star Wars toy for younglings unveiled here at Comic-Con -- the first officially licensed kids' size Star Wars Landspeeder, coming this September from Radio Flyer (and available for pre-order here).
The $499 toy, to be sold at Toys"R"Us, won't break any land speed records; it has a top speed of 5 mph in its two forward gears (and 2 mph in reverse).
You'll get about 5 hours of driving sidewalks (please, no roads) on a single charge.
But as you can see in the official video, it makes up for relative slowness with incredible cuteness:
With apologies to older fans, this 62-inch vehicle carries a maximum weight of 130 lbs -- barely enough room for a li'l Luke and li'l Obi-Wan, let alone the droids you're not looking for.
Radio Flyer produces a variety of electric kids' vehicles, including a tiny Tesla Model S you can charge and plug an MP3 player into.
The Model S also retails for $499.
Chris is a veteran tech, entertainment and culture journalist, author of 'How Star Wars Conquered the Universe,' and co-host of the Doctor Who podcast 'Pull to Open.' Hailing from the U.K., Chris got his start as a sub editor on national newspapers. He moved to the U.S. in 1996, and became senior news writer for Time.com a year later. In 2000, he was named San Francisco bureau chief for Time magazine. He has served as senior editor for Business 2.0, and West Coast editor for Fortune Small Business and Fast Company. Chris is a graduate of Merton College, Oxford and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is also a long-time volunteer at 826 Valencia, the nationwide after-school program co-founded by author Dave Eggers. His book on the history of Star Wars is an international bestseller and has been translated into 11 languages.
