In 1846, the Dowager Queen Adelaide, widow of King William IV, presented Queen Victoria's children with one of the first of many small-scale vehicles to be given to the royal children over the next 150 years. The child-sized, donkey-drawn barouche was made to look almost identical in style to the one used by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

With the emergence of motor cars at the end of the nineteenth century, car manufacturers soon turned their attention to miniature reproductions. A toy Citroën, modeled on the full-size C4, was presented to Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret in the late 1920s, while Aston Martin presented Prince Andrew with a miniature replica of the DB5 used by James Bond in the films Goldfinger and Thunderball.

In addition to these rather luxurious children's vehicles normally presented by their makers, the royal children also enjoyed playing with bicycles, tricycles and simple, pedal-powered tractors.