11 Surprisingly Scary Car Toys from the ’80s and ’90s

The 1980s and 1990s were a wild time for children’s entertainment. R-rated blockbuster movies like RoboCop and Rambo spawned cartoons kids watched after school. Entertainment companies chased fads such as the immense popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which led to knock-offs like Street Sharks and the Biker Mice From Mars.

Now that it’s October, the spooky season is here. Let’s get nostalgic about this boom time for interesting toys and check out some of the vehicles from the 1980s and 1990s that helped creepy kids get into cars. 

Ghostbusters Ecto-1 

It’s an obvious choice, but the Ecto-1 from the Ghostbusters toy line is one of the coolest toys from this era. The miniature version of the Cadillac ambulance from the 1984 action-comedy film features a roof-mounted turret, a ghost-trapping claw, opening front doors, and a fold-down rear hatchback. The passenger layout means there is just enough room to fit your Egon, Peter, Ray, and Winston action figures onboard and pretend to speed through New York to bust some ghosts.

Ghostbusters Highway Haunter

The Ghostbusters Ecto-1 toy came out in 1987, and in 1988, the franchise added a monster vehicle for the heroes to chase. The Highway Haunter looks like a yellow Volkswagen Beetle Convertible in its normal form, but it transforms into a giant praying mantis when a kid pushes on the headrests. The process includes the front wheels pivoting downward so the toy can roll across the floor in either configuration. The monster version is taller than the regular action figures, so the mantis looks suitably menacing when playing with them.

Ghostbusters Wicked Wheelie

In 1989, the designers stretched their creativity to the breaking point to make a grotesque vehicle for the Ghostbusters toy line. The Wicked Wheelie is a scooter in the style of a Honda Elite with a separate rider figure with a bizarre, neckless body. Kids can transform the scooter by bending open panels to turn it into a creature that looks like an orange shrimp with a giant mandible and green teeth. Meanwhile, the weird rider figure gets even uglier by turning into a pink monster with an engine and wheel between its legs. 

Beetlejuice Creepy Cruiser

The 1988 film Beetlejuice spawned an animated series from 1989 through 1991, and it received a wonderfully spooky toy line. The action figures offered several versions of Beetlejuice, including versions with a spinning head, a chest full of removable spears, and an exploding body.

Any proper toy line needs a vehicle for the action figures to ride in. Beetlejuice gets the Creepy Cruiser with a blend of automotive styling cues, including intakes on the hood, side-exit exhausts, and massive rear fins. When the wheels turn, the snakes in the trunk spin around and tip out of the vehicle.

Unfortunately, the toy looks much better on the box because of the car’s vibrant paint scheme with a pink body and purple fins. The spirited color combo fits Beetlejuice’s chaotic energy much better than the toy’s burgundy red and black mix.

Beetlejuice Phantom Flyer

When not driving the Creepy Cruiser, Beetlejuice could ride the Phantom Flyer trike. The front end looks like a skeleton, complete with a moving jaw, a skull wearing purple goggles, and hands supporting the front wheel. The rear features big fins in a vivid neon green and purple color combo.

By pulling the handlebars into the trike’s body, kids can remove the front wheel and use the hands to grab ghouls. The fins also fold down to pretend this vehicle is a plane, so kids have multiple ways to play with the toy.

Jurassic Park Bush Devil Tracker

Jurassic Park was a monster blockbuster in 1993, and the movie received an especially fun toy line. All of the human figures in the series came with a tiny dinosaur, so there was always at least a little creature to play with. The bigger dinosaur toys had evocative designs and gimmicks such as snapping jaws, electronic sounds, and removable body pieces for exposing muscle and bone.

The robust designs extended to the two car toys in the original line. The Bush Devil Tracker looks like the Jeep Wrangler YJ in the movie but with extra features, including a missile launcher that clips onto the roll cage and a slide-out passenger seat with an extending snare. The windshield also comes off to simulate the look of the vehicle after a dinosaur attack.

Jurassic Park Jungle Explorer

The other car toy in the original Jurassic Park toy line was the Jungle Explorer, based on the Ford Explorers from the movie. The vehicle features an accurate color scheme with a green upper body and red stripes. There’s even a clear panel in the roof. Most of the hood and front grille come off to simulate battle damage. The toy version gains an extra platform on the back where a figure can stand and shoot the mounted missile launcher, which seems unnecessarily violent to use against dinosaurs. 

Aliens Stinger

The R-rated Alien franchise is a weird choice to turn into a toy line aimed at kids. However, it resulted in some fantastic action figures. Many of the human characters came with big weapons with cool features, such as a flame thrower with an extending plastic fire or a minigun with rotating barrels. Meanwhile, the aliens had impressive animal-inspired designs, including the Scorpion Alien, Snake Alien, Mantis Alien, Rhino Alien, and more. 

The Stinger XT-37 gave kids a heavily armed toy for fighting aliens. It includes a cockpit with a roll cage for a driver. A missile launcher comes up from the passenger side. There’s a turret on the back where another figure can stand to fight off alien attack.

Unfortunately, the toy line never included a version of the ultra-angular armored personnel carrier from the Aliens movie that could have carried multiple figures inside.

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs Jack Turner’s Cadillac

Somehow, the alternative comic Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (originally called the less evocative Xenozoic Tales) spawned a 13-episode animated series, a particularly fun beat-em-up arcade game, and a toy line. The series star Jack Turner drove a stylized take on an early 1950s Cadillac 62 Series convertible, and the classic Caddy came out as quite a cool toy.

The Cadillac features a vibrant red body and lots of chrome-effect parts. The hood features boosters with extending flames. Pushing down on the hood scoop causes the Dagmar bumper guards to shoot out. The trunk opens to reveal a net for capturing dinosaurs. Even if they know nothing about this franchise, the toy is cool enough that Caddy fans might want to track one down to display on a shelf.

Swamp Thing Marsh Buggy

The DC Comics character Swamp Thing was part of a small media empire in the 1980s and early 1990s. The story was about a scientist who accidentally turns himself into a giant plant and fights a villain with the fantastic name Anton Arcane. There were two films, a live-action TV series, an animated series, and a video game. The cartoon even spawned a toy line.

The Marsh Buggy is one of two vehicles in the Swamp Thing toy series. It’s an ivy-covered, six-wheeled machine for getting around wet terrain. There’s a claw in front for grabbing baddies. However, the car is a weird choice for Swamp Thing. At points in the comics, Swamp Thing takes on an ecological theme, and the character can travel through plant roots, so trampling the ecology in a six-wheeler doesn’t quite fit Swamp Thing’s spirit.

Mummies Alive Hot Ra

Mummies Alive! was one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle knock-offs from the 1990s. The convoluted plot is that a boy named Presley Carnarvon is the reincarnation of ancient Egypt’s Prince Rapses, and a revived evil sorcerer named Scarab wants to retrieve the prince’s spirit to become immortal. A group of mummies are there to protect the kid from the villain. This was enough of a concept to spawn a 42-episode series in 1997.

The figures in the toy line came with clip-on armor or costumes so that kids could play with them in two different outfits. The accessory vehicles included the Hot Ra hot rod. The design combines elements from a top-fuel dragster and a sarcophagus. It features an extending nose that reveals an engine and exhaust pipes. The rear wing’s upper portion comes off to be a missile-shooting hang glider for the figures. 

Mummies Alive! is largely forgotten today, and it’s not too hard to understand why. The makers are selling kids the fantasy of having the undead protect them from an evil sorcerer. It might have been too heady of a concept for most audiences. However, the creepy-looking toys are a perfect accompaniment for a Halloween-themed toy display.