Perambulators, strollers, and sundry curious conveyances
San Francisco, California Academy of Sciences. Orbit:
A beautiful day, and a most unusual sight. One of Orbit’s claims to fame is the rotating seat, which would seemingly be most relevant when navigating indoors, where space might be tight. This little passenger, though, is taking in a side view as he (or she) is strolled along. It’s a odd choice, but perhaps parents and grandparents who explore the CAS with babies in tow are more experimental than most.
Well, from Gizmodo, actually (check out the comments; they’re worth a look):
Is that Robo-Tyke riding backwards? Walking in front? Or is it standing on a hidden Robo-Bub who’s riding in the red stroller? And why, oh, why, can’t we see the strollers better? Russian pushchairs? Time for me to learn Cyrillic — and acquire a new keyboard.
Via daddytypes
San Francisco, California Academy of Sciences. Baby Jogger City Mini and UPPABaby Vista:
Ah, the City Mini: All the discomfort of a jogger, without the big wheels. Well, they’re cute, and they’re small (at least compared to standard joggers), and they fold. But they’re not really joggers, and only sort-of strollers.
The Mini’s in profile; the stroller on the right is the Vista. UPPABaby shows up all over The City, which is interesting. I haven’t seen nearly as many on the east coast, even though headquarters (“World Headquarters and Factory Showroom”) is in Hingham, Massachusetts.
Update 3/13/2010: Well, well, well. See that lengthy discourse below? Pretend it’s actually about an UPPABaby Vista. Further investigation suggests that Brüno’s buggy could be a Vista, instead of a Strider. In fact, I’m invalidating my model-type speculation below. As the movie was partially made in the USA, I’m guessing the US-affiliated Vista is the more likely choice than the Australian Steelcraft. Forensic science based solely on photos isn’t all it might be. Now the question is: Why are the Strider and Vista virtually identical? (There will be a post about this eventually.)
Brüno, Sacha Baron Cohen’s alter ego in the movie of the same name, acquires an infant and a pram. Here is one view of the carriage:
And a second one:
Baron Cohen is British; the film was made largely (if not wholly) in the US, but the pram is Australian, and not common in the US. (Yes, I’d love to know the story behind that . . . ). It’s a Steelcraft Strider 4, probably a 2008 model. Here’s what the stock version looks like:
Steelcraft is a General Motors sort of stroller company. Their products are somewhat clumsy, on the heavy side, and pretty much miss the mark when it comes either to style or any coolness factor. Baron Cohen’s people changed all that.
Update, per above, 3/13/2010: Here’s the way-similar, but cooler-looking, UPPABaby Vista:
Less is more, here, as in so many instances. But on to the specifics of the Brüno mod.
First, they painted the frame bright white (and, in the process, obliterated the pram’s identity). They removed a fabric panel from the lower chassis, giving the frame a more structural look:
This is a little tricky to visualize, especially since the frames are reversed in the two pictures. The image on the left is the same chassis, but with the stroller seat on it. The fabric panel is under the stroller footrest. The panel is missing on the white frame (see the rectangle at the front), giving the chassis a lighter, leaner look.
There’s a wide, fat support bar that runs through the basket, and can’t easily be seen on the stock model. Removing the basket and frame make the bar a design feature:
Of course, there’s no storage once the basket is gone, but that’s OK. Social Services removed Brüno’s baby (and pram) before the conclusion of the show on which he was appearing, thus rendering the issue of cargo capacity irrelevant.
The bed was entirely re-upholstered (the original is only available in red or slate). The Brüno designers chose crisp white and black contrasts, and added piping at the front, which echoes and defines the shape much better. The tailored look is a complete turn-around from the rather conventional, ho-hum, look of the original:
The laptop was a nice touch, but is, as it was meant to be, asinine. I assume the baby had his own remote. (Although in this shot, the baby seems to have been replaced by a brown leather handbag. Make of that what you will.)
If Brüno were a better movie, this use of pure white for the frame, along with the black and white choices for the pram body, might have been some kind of social commentary, and an amusing foreshadowing of Brüno’s evolution into a white dove (or angel, or whatever it is he morphs into at the end). But it isn’t, so they aren’t. Still, it’s a really impressive stroller mod.
Red Strider image from Gumtree.
Stroller image from Britax/Steelcraft.
UPPABaby image from (right) UPPABaby
San Francisco, Asian Art Museum. Perego Skate:
Yeah, blurry. You have no idea how tricky it is to snap these things on the fly; not to mention that I really wasn’t at the museum to check out the strollers. Honest.
You’d think, with all the options in the world, that stroller names would be unique, wouldn’t you? Not quite, as we’ve noted previously.
Here’s a Mutsaerts Mistral from 1972. (“Mutsaerts” was Mutsy’s name before it became Mutsy):
Nearly 30 years later, the Maclaren Mistral surfaced, from England (well, from China, actually, but what isn’t?):
And here’s a Teutonia Mistral, from Germany (2009):
This shared-name thing is a little odd. Copy-cats? Failure of marketing research? Lack of imagination? It’s not a choice that would seem to serve anyone very well. Carving out those market niches isn’t all that easy, after all, and is that much harder if the product name isn’t unique.
What is a mistral? I’m glad you asked. It’s a cold, northerly wind. In France.
My world is now complete. Ruud Mors, of Ouderwetse-Kinderwagens, is posting video of the prams he restores. Here’s a still from his Wilson Fleur de Lys 1962 Restored:
We’ll make ‘em turn their heads every place we go . . .
Ouderwetse-Kinderwagens is in the Netherlands, but that’s why overseas freight was invented. Watch the transformation of another English pram in the video Marmet Super Imperial 1973; The owners shipped it from the USA to Ruud Mors’ shop in the Netherlands, and he sent it back transformed . . .
See all seven (so far) of Mors’ videos here. And dream, dream, dream . . .
Ronettes lyrics from Oldies Lyrics, because, yeah, I’m so uncool I had to look them up.
San Francisco, The Mission. Maxi-Cosi Foray:
Hope you don’t use the excellent Firefox browser when attempting to look up Maxi-Cosi. Even with scripting enabled, I get no images on the site. Nice work, Dorel programmers!
Related: Another SF spot, in Japantown. Same city, different Foray.
It’s a new acquisition for The Pram Museum! An Italian 2002 Inglesina Quad stroller (or “passeggini a quattro”, if you prefer). Here it is, with a faux 8-month-old as a passenger:
You can’t get a really good idea of scale here, but that’s a large-ish entryway, and it’s completely obstructed by the stroller.
These strollers are wonderfully clever, and can be used in one-, two-, three-, or four-seat configurations, as well as with pram-bed variations. More about those later. In the meantime, here’s what the 1987/1988 model looked like with siblings who are just over one-year-old:
(The real little faces are obscured, because we generally don’t show babies’ faces on Pram Watch.)
This is an incredibly bulky, cumbersome stroller — at least once all four seats are installed. Inglesina no longer sells the quad version, probably because pushing it loaded with three-year-olds would require massive doses of illegal steroids. And loading it into a car or van? You’d have to be nuts to try it.
Which isn’t going to prevent me from doing that at least once, because, well, that’s what I do. Fortunately, I’ve got some helpful muscle hanging around. Two of us ought to be able to wrangle a fully-configured quad in and out of a truck, don’t you think?
San Francisco, the Zoo. Perego Venezia:
Not a glamour-puss, but, as standard strollers go, a versatile workhorse, as this one amply demonstrates. These are sturdy critters, with ride-on platforms front and back, a reversible handle, and pram-ability, achieved by lowering the seat-back, raising the footrest and/or adding the boot. It is a flat fold, which means it needs a pretty broad plane when collapsed, but look at that lovely, roomy seat!