RetroMoto toy shop is a blast from the past

Colorado Springs Business Journal, May 9, 2003 by Lance Gurwell

You have to envy someone who, after earning a degree in urban planning, bags it for toys.

Meet Ed West Klingman, who looks and acts like most other husbands and fathers of small children, except maybe for the shaved head and his love of toys. Not just any toys, mind you; his toys are retro, the old, new. It made as much sense to him to be a toy seller as a financial analyst or urban planner.

Truthfully, he doesn't play with the toys that much, but he does sell them. Wait, dang it, he really does spend quite a bit of time playing with toys.

Naturally so. He fits solidly into the marketing demographic his store aims for. The store specializes in reproductions of historical windup cars, airplanes, robots, rockets, swings, boats and other pieces of pressed and painted metal, and the memories they evoke.

In fairness, he will sell an item or two when forced to do so. After all, he has a wife and a couple kids to support, and then there is the rent, utilities and insurance on the little store he recently opened in Manitou Springs under the name RetroMoto.

Foot traffic is light this time of year in Manitou. Many stores are still on winter hours and have limited inventory, giving Klingman a few more days to play with his retro stock.

But the inventory at the biker bar down the street is never low, and the leather crowd is out in spades today. The smoky bar is located near the deserted, some say haunted, old Manitou Spa building. The riders could give a damn about ordering merchandise and figuring markups; their only concern is the summertime Susies who will soon ride into town and make it hard to find elbowroom at the saloon.

Nevertheless, by the time Carnivale is over and the first iris spring from the cold April ground, Manitou merchants get serious about sprucing up their shops. Stock arrives and sellers hope tourists show up in larger numbers than a year ago. Early-season wildfires kept many vacationers away last year.

The colorful toys Klingman sells are guaranteed to put a smile on the face of almost anyone over the age of 40, but the store has plenty of other stuff for real kids. There are wooden blocks, clay, jump ropes and Frisbees. A stylish, racy red pedal car anchors the window display. From the ceiling hang hoola hoops and soft toys, like a stuffed biplane.

The interest in retro toys and art deco design caught fire a few years ago and shows no signs of slowing down.

"I think there are a number of factors contributing to the fascination with retro and nostalgia," Klingman said. "First, people always remember the past as less troubled times even when they really weren't... people have that capacity to filter the bad and remember the good in their past.

"Basically, everything old is new again," he said. "Teenagers today even find that stuff as recent as the '80s is retro, and that is blasphemy to a guy who graduated high school in the '80s.