Radio Flyer, est 1917

For your child’s safety, a no-pinch ball joint keeps little fingers safe and a controlled turning radius prevents tipping. The Radio Flyer Trav-ler wagon has a full-sized all-steel seamless body with no-scratch edges and natural wooden stake sides. This wagon features an extra long handle for easy pulling and durable steel wheels with real rubber tires for a quiet ride. Changing the company’s name to Radio Steel & Manufacturing in 1930, Pasin also introduced his first steel wagon, called the Radio Flyer.

He called his new wagon the “Radio Flyer,” another patriotic reference to his homeland, this one after a famous Italian invention, the radio. Intended “for every girl and boy,” the wagons radio flyer wagon sold for less than $3 each. Even in the depths of the Great Depression, they sold at the rate of 1,500 a day. The group began exploring ways to push their company into the 21st century.

radio flyer wagon

Working in Chicago as a manual laborer, Pasin bought used woodworking equipment and set up shop in a rented room. Building little red wagons at night and peddling them during the day, he saved enough money to found the Liberty Coaster Company in 1923, naming it after the statue he had admired in New York Harbor. In 1930, he began mass-producing the toys out of stamped metal.

Hoping to scale production and outpace his competitors, Antonio switched from wooden wagons to all-steel ones in the mid-1920s. By the 1930s, Antonio’s process was so operationally efficient that his team of frozen ride on toy 140 workers could stamp out 1,500 of them each day. In 1987, Radio Steel & Manufacturing changed its name for a third time, to Radio Flyer Inc. This name immediately brought to mind its most popular product.

All-terrain Radio Flyer wagons have bigger wheels and tires. The tires are air filled and have more rugged treads for use on grass, dirt, gravel and sand. The side rails of these Radio Flyer wagons are 50% deeper to hold more inside and the carrying capacities are upped to 200 pounds. In the all-terrain category, Radio Flyer also makes cargo wagons.