Rubik’s Cube was a 1980s worldwide puzzle-game phenomenon. The advert below is a promotional offer from le Cercle Française du Cube to send off for Cube goodies which included a tee-shirt, book, badge, sticker, and another of Rubik’s mind-challenging puzzles – the Tower of Babel (Babylone Tower).
Rubik’s Cube Goodies. France. Pif Gadget. 1981.
And in other vintage French news … another 1980s toy phenomenon …
Les Patoufs – Cabbage Patch Kids
France. Pif Gadget. 1983.
Barbie – Camping Van
France. Pif Gadget. 1981.
Group Action Joe
Group Action Joe. France. Pif Gadget. 1980.
France. Pif Gadget. 1980.
ET Vinyl Doll by Kamar
France. Pif Gadget. 1982.
Mon Petit Poney – My Little Pony
France. Pif Gadget. 1983.
Figurine Panini Stickers – Candy Candy
France. Pif Gadget. 1981.
TCR – Total Control Racing
France. Pif Gadget. 1981.
Carrera Servo Racing
France. Pif Gadget. 1980.
Atlantic Toy Soldiers
France. Pif Gadget. 1981.
France. Pif Gadget. 1982.
France. Pif Gadget. 1981.
Thanks for looking 🙂
The Vintage Toy Advertiser 
Hello TVTA, Anthony, The cool thing (amongst many) with TCR sets was it’s ability to let you purchase spare parts and “Tune” your cars. There were replacement motors, gear cogs to improve the motor performance, various grades of tires and you could even replace the electrical pic-up plates on the bottom of the cars. It was almost like an Indycar Pit Lane! Plus you had dozens of body shells to swap around too.
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Hi FT. Yeah, I think it was one of my brothers who had the TCR and ended up buying extra track from TRU. They were mostly straights and some small bends. I also remember the body shells you could switch.
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The body shells were really good. They were detailed and you could see exactly what car they were, not just generic bodies. I had World Rally car models on mine and a Ford Mustang “Jam Car”. TCR was just great.
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I had the cube, the tower of Babylon, the pyramid and the missing link. Ah educational toys.
Of course, I wish I had TCR (Total Control Racing). I had an AFX track.
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The AFX by Aurora. I don’t have any ads for that yet but it looks like a really good line of toy racing. Friends and family between us had TCR, Race ‘n Chase and Scalextric.
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oh how I wanted that barbie van!
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It’s a really cool van. Barbie has some impressive vehicles in toyworld – a VW Golf, a 57 Chevy, a Corvette, an Austin Healey, a Porshe 911 and even a Ferrari!
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Right! There was lots of coveting of the Corvette on my part as well!
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