I recieved one of these for Christmas of 1976 when I was in fourth grade. The "remote control" was nothing more than a loud clicker, which activated a sound reciever on top of the van. Each time you clicked the remote, the van would turn its wheels left, right, or go straight. I remember having a LOT of fun with that, but the loud clicker drove my parents crazy, so I had to play with it outside or in the basement.

I had one of these around 1976 or 77 for Christmas. My neighbor got one first. I fell in love with it and had to have one. The clicker stopped working after a month or two. Then we just yelled or clapped to get it to move...Fun toy!!

I loved mine ... I was 4 and I still remember the TV jingle (more or less): "You run the Max Machine You run the Max Machine Make it go straight Make it turn left or right It's fun You can see what I mean" >repeat

I wanted this Soooo bad when I first saw the adverts. for it on TV, but was quite dissapointed when I opened it up for X-mas and discovered the loud "Clicker". The TV commercials made it look like a genuine remote (radio)controlled car. I seem to remember the jingle going something like... "Me & the Max Machine - clap clap - clap, Me & the Max Machine - clap clap - clap".

I totally drove my parents crazy to get it for christmas. The commercial made it look fantastic fun and made it look gig enough to ride on. On christmas morning I was hugely dissapointed it was tiny. The remote was just a clicker that made an annoying boink noise and I never got the hang of the steering left straight right straight left repeat... It ended up being taken apart completely to never be played with by a little child again.

Yeah, got this thing in 3rd grade. What a disappointment. Same as the others, with the remote being a silly clicker. I seem to remember it backing up and circling with one click then straightening the wheels and going forward with the next click. Really weird. And my parents were driven nuts but I lost interest in the toy, quickly. Oh yeah, we would yell at it and my dad let me say a cuss word at it to make it back up because it was funny but he made me stop after I overdid myself with the foul language haha!

I just recieved one of these vans for christmas this year 2010!! Still in the box but box in rough shape. About to get it out to see if it works will be a trip if it does. Would anyone have any idea of what it might be worth? My daughter got it at an auction because she knows I love toy vans!!

Wow just seeing this now. This is great. Had to have one after seeing and demoing one in Toyworld back around 79. Never seen an add though. Carried it all the way home apporx 3kms, about 100metres from home I dropped the box! Got home put the batts in to find it didn`t work! Was I devistated. Took it back with dad and had it returned with the note that it would not be able to be returned again. Drove it as much as I could, it was great. straight, click, right, click, straight, click, left, click, etc... Can`t remember how or when it stopped working but kept it for ages after. Then later to find that it was thrown out!!! What I loved the most about the Max Machine was that cool sticker on the rear of that never ending road, can just remember it, COOL! Would love to find another.

anyone tryn 2 bring back old memories u can i own a 1977 max machine i fair conditon please feel free to call me and make me an offer 1(580)760.0739 ask for Robert thanks.wait no longer youv waited over thirty years...

here is a website for the van http://cchan.freehosting.net/cars/max.html

my wife had one has a kid i know it was a van around 76 77 would love to buy one or more of them any leds would be appreciated address scottedgmand@hotmail.com

I was 4 and remember wanting one so bad for x-mas. After opening it I immediately ran down to the front porch. Set it down started clicking and the darn thing drove off the porch and crashed down the concrete stairs. The end of my Max Machine! still haunts me from time to time scared for life.

I should thank the inventors and marketing team at Scherpa Manufacturing Company. Their Max Machine deception- crushing the souls of children around the country-- turned this idealistic 6 year old who still believed in wonder and magic into a deeply cynical grade schooler who came to understand early that people on TV are liars and that advertisers are evil goblins. The click-clicking "controller" that (occasionally) made the van turn right I assume was designed by a fugitive Nazi doctor in Argentina. It was an abomination, a lie born in plastic. It was my revelation there-is-no-Santa-Clause, it was my Drink Your Ovaltine secret decoder ring, my tooth fairy lie... And so, over the decades, the Lie of the Machine made me hard. It calloused me. It opened my mind and steeled my spine. It was a symbol, to be sure, but it was also... me. And soon I was the Machine. I didn't feel that disappointment and loss of faith of mankind so profoundly again until I saw the abomination that was Episode I of Star Wars, which is really where my inner spirit was murdered, finally and absolutely And so always I thank you, Max Machine, for dropping the scales from my eyes. I have lived a long, hard-fought life, but because of you, Max Machine, I have had the foresight to be relentless in my dealing with others-- unforgiving in business, stingy in love-- and using your great Lie as a model for what's necessary to get ahead-- I know I could kick a child in the face if it was necessary, because, Max Machine, that's what you did to me. I hope you're proud of yourselves.

Talk about bringing back memories! This thing was a blast. Sometimes I wish I still had some of those toys from way back. Not to play with them, but just to look at them and bring back the memories. I also remember having a RC van that only turned when it backed up, but I can't remember the name of it. I thought it had Dan in the name of it. Who knows?

I wanted this thing SO BAD, back in the day, for Christmas. Day arrived, pulled it out of the box to play with it and . . . . . WHAT A POS. I was SO disappointed! That just sucked.

eBay has a Stomper Max Machine van selling for $15. Schaper must have farmed production overseas, with the mediocre quality of vehicle and remote. Not surprisingly, it was one of Schaper's last projects before merging with Hasbro.

This toy van was bought for me around 1977---such a good year for a child! I recall playing with it a lot, using that remote clicker. I don't know what happened to my little van, and I miss having it, as I miss those years.

Mine stopped steering right away. Never did get it working right. Spirit crushed. Gave up on life. Considering suicide.

Does anyone know if these came in different sizes?

Like many of you, I wanted this BADLY around Xmas probably in '77 or '78, probably at least half due to the super-catchy jingle. Like many of you, I was profoundly, viscerally disppointed in the 'clicker'. It was really a worthless little come-on, I'd wanted something R/C (which was pretty expensive back then) and this was just sad. It was a teaching moment about advertising in the longer run, though my parents kind of inflicted it on me by not realizing it was NOT what I was actually asking for in the bigger picture, even as I clamored for that exact toy. I recall the jingle going "You and the Max Machine, You and the Max Machine... Make it turn left, make it go straight, make it turn right, you can see what I mean..." I'm sure it's on YouTube somewhere. However I recall that one click started it forward, the next click caused it to reverse and swerve ~90 degrees to the right, and take off forward again (i.e. crudely turning left, I guess?): you had to catch it and turn it off to stop it, once started. If you needed it to turn right you had to try to click it fast within a short amount of travel (such as in front of a doorway you were trying to get it to go through) and that usually failed. The forward/rear-right-forward wasn't an uncommon setup in low-rent "R/C" cars of the day, I recall some Tandy/Radio Shack cars doing the same thing: those even had a little top-down diagram of its possibile directions in the catalog, picture a capital 'L' with an arrow pointing up off the top and then another down at the lower end pointing to the right (where actual R/C cars' diagrams, also sold by T/RS in the same catalog) had left/right forward arrows to ahead and behind, say). Why even MAKE such a completely useless 'toy'? I do wonder how many of these were returned or chucked, perhaps enough to make them even rarer today. :) Reading folks' posts above, I'm wondering if mine was defective or if over the production run they changed what clicking did, or something. The audio sensor on the top was pretty sensitive too, so it was unable to run over textured kitchen linoleum without getting false input. So... in the end I "played" with it for about a day and in the weeks following I learned a bit about motors and wires and such, as I took it apart and eventually tossed it. Thanks for sharing, everyone. :)