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  • What are they? CifToys Push and Go Friction Cars
  • Why I love them: These toy trucks have entertained my son for three years now, and are great for older babies and toddlers alike.
  • How much are they? $26 for a set of three cars
  • Where to buy them: Amazon

If you’re the parent of a baby or toddler who is completely spellbound by cars and trucks, you know that a small child can accumulate so many play vehicles. And also, that most of them are pretty meh. Most, except the CifToys Push and Go Friction Cars ($26 on Amazon). They’re magnificent.

When my mom brought over the set of three plastic vehicles — a cement mixer, a street sweeper and a combine harvester — for my son Eli to play with, I didn’t think much of them. They looked like any other box of cheap plastic trucks that would hold his interest for a day or two before being forgotten about or broken. But looks can, of course, be deceiving, and this set turned out to be pretty special.

The CifToys cars are friction powered, so they move fast. As an older baby and young toddler, Eli would happily sit pushing them — and watching them zoom across the room far quicker than any of his other cars — for a good 15 minutes at a time. Because they’re on the larger side, they were easier for him to grab and manipulate than most smaller cars and I didn’t have to worry about pieces being a choking hazard.

After he turned 2, his play with the cars often took a more imaginative (and equally engrossing) turn, setting the street sweeper or combine harvester into scenes and narrating what they were doing. The fact that all of this happened without toys involving flashing lights or kiddie music made me very happy.

Now that he's a preschooler, we’ll bring the trucks down to the basement on rainy days and race them. The friction power still sends them flying down the floor, and sometimes they’ll crash into the wall (or each other) and spin around or get stuck, so we never know which vehicle is going to win. The anticipation of it all makes him go wild. (And I have to admit, I usually have a lot of fun myself.)

You might expect so much zooming and crashing of cheap plastic objects would cause them to break, and quick. I certainly did! But that hasn’t been the case. We’ve had these trucks for almost three years now and they still look and work like they’re brand new. They’re practically heirloom toys, only without the eye-popping price.

There are a ton of different friction-powered car sets on Amazon alone, and this one hasn’t necessarily racked up the most reviews. Don’t let that deter you though. The hundreds of parents who have taken to raving about them online have given the cars a 4.8 out of 5-star rating, because everyone agrees that they tick the three most important boxes:

They keep tots of all ages busy for a loooong time.

“My two-year-old daughter played with these for hours and had a ball. She loved the characters in the vehicles and was entirely captivated,” one reviewer wrote. “What a great toy! Meant for 1-year-olds, but kids ages up to 4 were fighting to play with these over other car toys,” said another.

They can be used in lots of different ways.

Cars and trucks definitely fall into the category of open-ended toys with lots of potential uses (racing, role-playing, sending them down the slide at the playground), but this reviewer had another smart idea: “They have educational value besides just being fun to play with. They allow for you to play with your child and explain about [recycling] (bottles, plastic, paper, so on), the sweeper [teaches kids] about keeping things clean and why it is important, the harvester [can help you talk] about food and where food comes from.” Nice!

They keep working forever (and they don’t need batteries).

The friction power means these trucks run on their own, and they hold up to years of rough-and-tumble play. “My son dropped these toys multiple times on the hard floor but there's no damage,” wrote one reviewer. “Perfect size for a 1-year-old's hand and they can take a beating! My grandson plays with these daily and loves them. They are sturdy, well built and an awesome gift for a toddler!” said another.

Will Eli still be playing with these cars when he’s 5? 10? He’s starting to get interested in other things like dinosaurs and robots, so only time will tell. What I can say for sure: We’ve already gotten our money’s worth from these cars about a hundred times over. And chances are, you will, too.

See more: Starting at $26 for a set of three on Amazon