Sixty years ago this month, the cover of the May 1964 issue of Electronics Illustrated shows Dad putting the finishing touches on this remote-control vehicle that he’ll be surprising Junior with. The transmitter puts out 100 mW on CB channel 23 for good range without the need for a license. One push of the button steers the truck to the right as long as the button is held down, and two pushes steers it to the left.

The editors couldn’t find any vehicles with steerable front wheels, so they bought the Tonka truck shown here and modified it by adding a steerable front axle.

Complete circuits for transmitter and receiver are included. The receiver employs five transistors, and the transmitter, three.