Whenever I write about Anki’s Anki Drive — a remarkable plaything that involves tiny robotic cars you control via iPhone — I call them a dazzling modern-era take on the slot-car racing of my youth.

When I was most intensely interested in toy race cars — which would be back in the 1970s — there was no question what the state of the art in that particular category of plaything was. It was Ideal’s ...