Speed Buggy

Speed Buggy was a living car with a big heart, albeit mechanical. Built by Tinker, with the assistance of his friends Mark and Debbie, the foursome traveled the globe competing in racing competitions.

Tinker mainly sat behind the steering wheel, although whichever teen took the driver seat made little difference. Being fully autonomous, Speed Buggy — or Speedy for short — was fully capable of driving himself. The orange dune buggy had many traits more akin to a person than a car, most notably having eyes for headlamps and a mouth where his grille should be. Occasionally, Speedy used his front tires as arm-like appendages to pick up and hold items. Other tricks included super-inflating his tires to float on water, or gliding for short distances by extending his fenders. In the event Speed Buggy got separated from the rest of the crew, Tinker had a remote control device that allowed him to communicate with Speedy or navigate him from a distance.

Although built for the race track, Speed Buggy and crew just as often raced into trouble. The teens had the misfortune to encounter over the top villains wherever they went, including such crazy criminals as The Incredible Changing Man, with the ability to stretch or reshape his body, and The Ringmaster, who trained and ordered circus animals to commit crimes. Despite these constant criminal encounters and the unsportsmanlike obstacles other racers threw in their path, Speedy had a knack for out-racing the competition and crossing the finish line first.

Speedy and his friends raced for only a single season of sixteen episodes, but reruns of the series continued to air well past the original broadcast date of 1973. Initially on CBS, both ABC and NBC subsequently picked up the series, followed still later by other major networks. In 1977, Tinker and Speedy joined other Hanna-Barbera characters on Scooby’s All Star Laff-A-Lympics, as part of the Scooby Doobie team of contestants.