4WD toy cars priced at 9.9 yuan: Middle-class dads are starting to be thrifty when raising their kids

Recently, a group of fathers have started taking the initiative to plan weekend outings with their kids.

As the cost of raising children keeps rising, these thrifty fathers have finally found a perfectly suitable solution: buy a 4WD car for just dozens of yuan, and race it in a free public park for the whole afternoon.

The children chase the cars while the fathers tinker around by the side. It costs very little, but they end up having as much fun as if they were at an F1 race.

The F1 Hidden in Public Parks

In Beijing's Wenyuhe Park, there is a 130-meter-long 4WD track. Every afternoon, you can always spot many fathers in their 30s and 40s bringing their children there.

The 4WD cars zoom around several sharp turns along the track. The seven or eight-year-old kids keep a close eye on their own cars, running nonstop all the way to the finish line. When they reach the end, they catch the little car with both hands, check the shell, spin the wheels twice to make sure nothing is broken, then hold the car in their arms and get back in the queue for the next round.

Dozens of meters away lies a longer track, reserved for adults. The Dragon Loop, jump platform, Rainbow Slope and continuous sharp turns are connected together. As soon as the car is released, someone next to the track starts the timer. A smooth full run is greeted with cheers, while a car that flies off the track halfway draws a collective sigh from the crowd.

Some people bring their sons with their own "heirloom" racing cars that they have kept for decades; some kids are responsible for assembling the cars while their fathers squat beside them acting as cheerleaders. There are also people who originally just came to watch, but after walking around the small stall selling boxed cars and accessories, they return with a brand new boxed car in their hand.

This generation of people who used to run around the track themselves more than 20 years ago are now bringing their next generation back. 4WD cars have evolved from a childhood toy for individuals to a weekend activity that two generations can participate in together.

Xiao Hei is a regular visitor here. Like many other players of his age, he grew up watching *Let's & Go* series, and now even jokingly calls himself "4WD Old Man".

Xiao Hei's first car was a domestic "Victory Charge" he bought with pocket money he saved for weeks when he was little. The chassis had rough edges and the stickers were applied crookedly, but the excitement he felt the day he got it was no less than the thrill of buying a new car as an adult later on.

He stepped away from the hobby for many years. Not long ago, he accidentally came across a 4WD car competition, and his old restless passion was rekindled. He started traveling from one track to another, writing reviews of his experiences along the way, as if he was making up for all the tracks he did not get to finish in his childhood.

In the summer of 2026, Auldey Double Diamond and Zhao Yiming Snacks have put 4WD cars back on the shelves. Classic models such as Thunder Terminator and Silver Electric Killer are made into blind boxes, priced at only 9.9 yuan per box.

Photo | 4WD car blind box available for 9.9 yuan

Passing by Zhao Yiming Snacks after work, Xiao Chen picked up several boxes casually and paid without hesitation. "I buy beer for the current me, and 4WD cars for the little kid I used to be." The price is so low that not buying them almost feels like refusing to reconcile with your 20-year-old self.

Soon, these 9.9-yuan little cars have their own competition format — the Stock Box Race. The rules are simple: participants race with the brand new unmodified car they just bought, modifications are restricted, no expensive accessories or complicated upgrades are allowed. The competition only tests the most basic car condition, battery performance, stability, and a little bit of luck.

Xiao Chen has taken his "Silver Electric Killer" to many competitions. His best performance was making it all the way to the group final at a Stock Box Race held in Shenzhen.

Along with Xiao Hei and Xiao Chen, a large group of people who never got enough fun out of 4WD cars more than 20 years ago are returning to the tracks. And these fathers have accidentally found a very affordable weekend activity to spend time with their kids.

9.9 Yuan Solves the Weekend Childcare Dilemma

Spending a weekend with children these days is far from cheap.

Cultivating children's hobbies is a huge challenge. The first trial experience is usually not expensive, but once you get serious about it, a single course package will cost you thousands of yuan, not to mention the extra money you spend on full sets of equipment. The trouble is that children's interests keep shifting, and the more money parents pay, the more reluctant they are to quit. In the end, these hobbies end up feeling no different from another tedious school assignment.

Even if you don't sign up for hobby classes and just take your kids out, you still spend a lot of money. A small train ride in the mall costs dozens of yuan for a few minutes, a DIY experience costs 100 to 200 yuan per session, and a ticket to an indoor amusement park is over 100 yuan. When you feel like "we've come all this way" and try all these activities, you end up spending a lot of money in just one afternoon. Happiness is charged by the minute, and you have to pay the exact same amount of money again next week.

In comparison, 4WD cars offer extremely high cost-effectiveness. An ordinary little car costs only dozens of yuan, the tracks in public parks are free, kids can run and play the whole afternoon, and they can quickly make friends with other children of the same age. If the kid loses interest after playing twice, you won't feel bad about storing the car away; if they really love it, you can bring the same car back the next weekend and play for another full afternoon.

Some fathers have even figured out a complete set of methods to get their kids hooked on the hobby.

First, play the anime *Let's & Go* for the kid. You don't have to force it, just play a few episodes at home. When the kid gets to know characters like Cyclone Charge and Speed Cobra on their own, buy a 4WD car and bring it home. With a bit of luck, it won't take long before the kid asks you: "Can we go race the car this weekend?" Then the father can naturally say yes.

All the little tricks they have accumulated at work are used to deal with their little rascals at home. They have long checked which nearby parks have 4WD tracks, and the cars are already prepared, just waiting for their kids to say "I want to go play 4WD cars" themselves.

Few childcare activities can make fathers take the initiative like this, because they want to play themselves. And among all the hobbies for adult men, 4WD cars face relatively little resistance from family members.

Fishing takes half a whole day, photography requires you to buy many different lenses after you get the camera body, and for camping, the work of carrying tents and packing up cooking equipment usually falls on the fathers. Sooner or later, the family will ask the three soul questions: "How much is this?" "Don't we already have one at home?" "What do you need this for?"

When it comes to 4WD cars, you can just reply: "The kid wants to play too."

Playing with the cars and accompanying the kids are arranged in the exact same afternoon. Of course the father will be extra motivated to make all the arrangements.

This group of fathers can be regarded as the first batch of "new energy vehicle owners": they experienced range anxiety more than 20 years ago. When the battery ran out, they had to replace it, but then they felt the car wasn't fast enough; after they installed a faster motor, the battery drained even quicker.

They are also willing to tinker around, applying all the skills they have learned over the years to this tiny palm-sized car. The accessories they could not afford when they were little can now be bought gradually. With continuously upgraded accessories, they are playing these 4WD cars as if they are F1 racers.

Photo | Racing cars at Wenyuhe Park

4WD Cars Spawn a Brand New Business Landscape

The origin of this 4WD car revival is a free track in Wenyuhe Park.

When the Wenyuguo Cultural and Creative Park was under construction, landscape designer Wang Weiqi incorporated his personal hobby of playing 4WD cars into the design. Two tracks made to official 4WD car specifications were hidden in the green space near Gate 12. For a very long time, it was just a little-noticed landscape feature in the park.

Later, someone posted the track online, and players realized that there was actually a place to race 4WD cars in a free public park in Beijing. At first there were only a few cars, later rows of toolboxes started to appear. The park management connected the previously separated tracks together, and gradually added rain shelters, adjustment zones and maintenance workstations.

The players themselves also started to clean the tracks, repair equipment and organize competitions. This originally casual venue soon became a place where people took the hobby very seriously.

In July, Bambu Lab brought 3D printing directly to the Wenyuhe competitions. The two hobbies turned out to be a surprisingly perfect match. When off-the-shelf parts don't fit, players can model and print their own parts, then install them on the car and test it. 4WD car shells, structural parts and modification solutions have started to appear on MakerWorld, and this old toy is gradually growing a brand new technical ecosystem.

Photo | MakerWorld

In August this year, Auldey Double Diamond restarted the Mini 4WD Championship that had been suspended for 16 years. The opening match in Guangzhou featured a 358-meter five-lane track, and more than 30 players who participated in previous competitions returned to the scene. According to the plan, there will be subsequent monthly city races, and the event will continue to cooperate with fixed tracks, public parks and local clubs.

Thirty years ago, Auldey Double Diamond made a whole generation of primary school students remember 4WD cars through competitions; 30 years later, that generation has become fathers, and the competitions have called them back. And now, these events are no longer exclusive to a single toy company.

When Beijing Youtee Shopping Center and PEK010 4WD Car Club held the Asian Mini 4WD Grand Prix, more than 150 professional racers showed up in three days. There are different categories including stock factory, B-MAX and open modification, catering to players of different skill levels. The top prize for the champion can reach as high as 30,888 yuan.

4WD car competitions are no longer just small-scale casual contests among a few players. Malls provide venues, clubs organize events, brands come in as sponsors, and live streaming amplifies the traffic.

More free tracks are popping up across the country. Beijing Green Heart Forest Park has built a 320-meter four-lane track, where professional competitive races and parent-child stock box races can be held at the same time; Shanghai Jiabei Country Park also has a 228-meter free track. An outdoor track of about 170 meters has appeared in Wuhan, and new 4WD car venues have also emerged in Guangzhou and Shenzhen one after another.

From 9.9-yuan boxed cars, to parts, batteries and tools, to competitions, sponsorships, mall events and park cultural tourism, 4WD cars have reactivated far more than just a single toy category, but a whole industrial chain of businesses that revolve around weekends.

When they were little, they waited for adults to build amusement parks for them. Now, this generation has become the adults who build amusement parks for themselves.

The cars are bought for the kids, the anime is watched with the kids, and the parks are visited with the kids. As for why their toolboxes are getting bigger and bigger, and why the fathers are more looking forward to weekends than their kids — that's another story entirely.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "Zhengu Research Lab" (ID: zhengulab), written by Liu Ye, edited by Zhang Duo, published with authorization from 36Kr.