GET YOUR CHILDREN OUTDOORS WITH THE ROLLPLAY NIGHTHAWK
**We were gifted the Nighthawk for the purposes of this review**
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Aw, man. The Rollplay Nighthawk. I’d never even heard of it, and neither had the boys when it turned up in the biggest box ever on our doorstep with the long-suffering UPS man. I know when the UPS man turns up it’s something unusual because he’s sure he’s cursed and can only be allowed to deliver me things that are either a ridiculous shape or heavy. I was ready for Gav to roll his eyes skyward when he saw what enormous contraption I was going to ask him to store in the shed. haha.
Anyhow, it arrived whilst the boys were at school and I left it all boxed up because I was completely sure it was going to take hours of assembly and I’d lose something or mess up reading instructions.
Finally, Gav was home and we had a Saturday to take it out to IBM where it would be quiet enough to test it out. It turns out that it didn’t take hours of assembly – it took a whole two minutes to life the single piece of Nighthawk from the box, change the plug adaptor which is included but a bit fiddly to get off, and then a few hours to charge up the Nighthawk which comes in one piece. Slot off the seat and the battery compartment is in there. Hooray!
So, the Nighthawk is a battery operated kind of go-kart which looks very much like a stingray. It’s chunky, heavy and feels very sturdy and durable. It’s operated by pressing the power button on the seat, and then there are two pedals – stop and go. It’s very simple.
The Nighthawk Ride-On from Roll play is powered by 12 Volts and blasts off to reach speeds of up to 6 miles/12kmh per hour. It’s the most exciting toy ride on my boys have EVER had – and the simplest to use too!
There’s an on-off button in the middle of the Nighthawk, and two pedals – accelerator and brake. The little side wheel underneath combined with the sturdy handles mean that turning is easy and the shape of the Nighthawk [like a manta ray] lets the boys feel confident they aren’t going to come off if they’re holding on. It’s definitely developing their spatial awareness and improving their core strength through steering. On the few occasions they’ve misjudged and HAVE hit something [Lyoto clipped the lampost], the speed isn’t sufficient to eject them and they’ve not been phased at all.
The Nighthawk also has a rather cute rear safety flag on for keeping an eye on the boys as they zip about racing, but they’re now obsessed with using it for a racing flag instead.
As mentioned earlier, it’s SO easy to get started by plugging in the Nighthawk with the included charger to the 12V battery to re-power the it. Our battery lasted well over an hour and it still didn’t stop, but we had to go to Nanny’s and so we’ll update when we figure out how long it zips about for!
If you have children who like to claim that outside [when there are no trees or bugs to find, or water to cause mayhem in] is boring, this is the toy for you this summer without doubt. Even though only one boy could ride at a time [and despite the boys insisting I should probably buy a couple more Nighthawks] whilst one was racing the Nighthawk, the others were running and leaping and cheering and timing laps for their brother. We made sure that they always had helmet, hand and wrist guards and knee and elbow guards on because it does zip about and, well, safety first.
The Nighthawk has an RRP of £169.99. It’s well built, brilliant fun and a real investment for summer – we were just sad us grown ups couldn’t have had one growing up too!
The photo below is a catalogue pose from Lyoto. Jensen swears it was him scowling at him but Yotie is sure this is him feeling cool and chill.
