The search for the secret to the BIG Bobby-Car's success

The facade of the BIG factory with the buffalo logo: it measures 42 meters from horn to horn.

The search for the secret of the BIG Bobby-Car's success takes us deep into the country, to the idyllic hamlet of Burghaslach in central Franconia. The factory's striking façade, featuring the buffalo logo, is visible from miles away along the Nuremberg to Frankfurt freeway. This 320,000-square-meter site houses one of Europe's most modern toy factories: production halls, engineering and logistics departments all under one roof. The set-up, like the company name, is seriously big. The BIG Bobby-Car on the hill in front of the administrative head quarters measures 8 x 4 x 2.8 meters. You can often see the sheep and goats that live in the special habitat here enjoying a lie-down in its shade.

It dwarfs the ten silvery silos in front of the assembly hall. They house the raw material – granulate. Tons of these tiny white balls are processed every year. Machines suck in the polyethylene granulate, which is measured out with computer-driven accuracy, mixed with colored granulate and heated to 200 degrees centigrade. Just under 2,000 grams are needed for the chassis of a BIG Bobby-Car. In the old days, children were put on wooden rocking horses or tinplate dogs covered in fur or cloth. But the wheels of progress were spinning faster and faster and children's toys were no exception. Scooters gave way to tricycles and then came the first kiddy-cars, made of tinplate. The Bobby-Car first saw the light in 1972, as more and more people found they could afford an automobile. That meant the toddlers had to have one too – just like the adults.

The basic shape of the kiddy-car hasn't changed in 36 years – something unusual in the fast-moving toy industry. But why meddle with success? This rotund oldtimer with the friendly headlights has been taken to the hearts of generation after generation. It has grown up a bit though: one brilliant idea was to add a hollow for the knee, so that older children could support their weight on one leg while pushing themselves along with the other.

BIG Fun sans frontieres

Key process: blow molding

In the blow molding room they produce not only the whole range of variants on the BIG Bobby-Car, but also many other BIG toys. Steel molds and colors are changed to match the order books and the stocks. Work goes on in three shifts. More than a million BIG products leave the premises every year: BIG Bobby-Cars with accessories and other vehicles such as trucks and tractors, slides, sandpits, and toy animals. The guardian angels of the BIG empire are the tools: a whole range of them for each toy component. To manufacture just one of these two-part molds, which look like outsize cake tins, can cost up to 200,000 euros. The weighty tools are stored in a concrete hall that will protect them even in case of fire. They are inserted into the big machines that give the plastic parts the required form, just as a waffle iron shapes dough. There are almost 700 of these tools for the 200 or so BIG products.

The 15 fully automated machines, each the size of a small bus, turn the melted polyethylene into a hollow tube, which is introduced into the mold and hangs there like an outsize plum tomato. This is then blown up into a raindrop-shaped balloon and, within 60 seconds, acquires a shape – such as the body of a BIG Bobby-Car. A robot arm takes the part and smoothes off the rough surface to the nearest fraction of an inch over a flame, before loading it on to a conveyor belt. You just can't help stroking the neatly rounded mudguards, which still feel quite warm for a while.

Little cars please BIG people

Every day about 2,000 kiddy cars start their journey here to go through the manufacturing halls – and then out into the world. There are countless variants nowadays: police cars, fire engines, Automobile Club patrol cars, tractors... Big automobile firms such as Volkswagen, Porsche, Jaguar, Ferrari, and Mercedes have had cars developed based on their own models; famous designers, including Philippe Starck, Kitty Kahane and James Rizzi, have been immortalized in "art editions".

Lots of grown-ups are mad about the kiddy car as well. There are official Grand Prix, clubs, lots of record attempts and betting. (The speed record is 105 km/h.) How do we explain this phenomenon? Is it because the BIG Bobby-Car is perfectly capable of bearing the weight of a full-grown adult? Or maybe because it's made in Germany? Or because it's still going strong after 15 years? Which raises the question why the stuff it's made of is so very strong.

Guarantee and seal of approval

Polyethylene is light and weatherproof, resists breaking, splitting, and denting, and repels sweat and saliva. It's using this plastic, plus the blow molding technique, that makes BIG products so robust. On top of that, they're UV-stable, physiologically impeccable and eco-friendly. That's guaranteed by the BIG quality passport. Since 1976, all BIG products have been subjected to all the toughness tests instituted by the TÜV (an independent association for technical inspection) and the Bavarian Landesgewerbeanstalt (trading agency) and bear the GS ("safety tested") mark – the highest guarantee of product safety. Naturally, every product has a three-year warranty.

"To guarantee high quality, we've stuck to the same factory site and the same workforce," says Michael Sieber, CEO of the Simba Dickie Group, which took over BIG in 2004. This was also an expression of his social conscience: he was anxious to safeguard all 170 jobs. And so far, he's done just that.

Automobile parade: 2,000 kiddy-powered cars roll off this conveyor belt every day.

A never ending story

Here's another reason why the BIG Bobby-Car can be said to have made toy history: there are no seconds and no second chances. If a BIG product has the slightest defect, it is picked out and recycled; along with any left-over material it is shredded, dyed black, mixed with 10 percent fresh granulate for extra durability, and used to make wheels – 8,000 of them every day. If a BIG Bobby-Car eventually gives up the ghost, the owner can return it to BIG for recycling. Which means it may end up as a "whisper wheel" – a "soft" wheel for kiddy racers that's kind to the nerves of their long-suffering parents. A stamping machine is used to affix the redand-white "hubcaps" to these wheels.

When a BIG Bobby-Car reaches the final conveyor belt, it is fitted with axles and wheels – and then the little red runabout gets its second baptism of fire. It's briefly flame-treated all over to provide a better surface for the adhesive. Quick as lightning, and with impeccable accuracy, an employee sticks on the “buffalo” radiator grill. And our rotund little friend, equipped with a detachable steering wheel, disappears into its box (all lettering printed in Franconia).

36 packages are stacked on a pallet, which is then wrapped in plastic. The way to the logistics department runs for 700 meters on underground conveyor belts and elevators and ends in a 40-meterhigh, robot-operated rack. From there, it's only a few yards to the loading ramp of the truck that will take the BIG Bobby-Cars on their round-the-world trip. Cars are exported as far and wide as Japan, Scandinavia, New Zealand, Dubai and the U.S.A.

Rated physiologically valuable

Do you still need another reason why this bright red kiddy car is so popular? It's medically valuable. Some years ago Jürgen Krämer, Professor of Orthopedics in Bochum's St. Joseph Hospital, declared that "Because of the way it holds the legs apart, the BIG Bobby-Car can help healthy hip development. If a child has a dislocated hip, which is treated by fitting a Pavlik harness, we recommend putting the child on a Bobby-Car."

People are always asking why there isn't a motorized version of the kiddy-powered car. But the firm's philosophy is against this. "Kids need to let off steam and discover the world through their feet," says Michael Sieber. That's why the BIG Bobby-Car is so well suited to a time like the present, when we always seem to be hearing about lack of exercise. The end of the success story is nowhere near in sight. By the way, the German opinion poll institute GEWIS states that just 72 percent of Germans would recognize Chancellor Angela Merkel.