Antique & Classic Cars Blog

This beautifully homely creation sat in a junkyard for many years before the right eyes recognized it as a marvelous piece of innovation and craftsmanship. Today it runs and drives (rides).

It is a motorcycle, in that it has the familiar characteristics of one—a motor and two wheels and an upright riding position and handlebars, fork, driven rear-wheel—but its genius, no doubt intentional on the builder’s part, is that it uses virtually no motorcycle parts. Only the twist throttle–perhaps not the original piece–appears to be from a motorcycle. Even the handlebars are cut down tubular table legs. Every other part comes from a car (wheels, engine, gearbox, frame members, headset) or a home (cut-down radiator) or something else non-motorcycle. Seat looks like small tractor.

Engine and gearbox are Chevrolet, frame pieces Model T, headset a Model T wheel hub. The tank across the top is coolant; fuel tank is below handlebars, which, as you note, do not connect to the fork directly, but through shafts like some of today’s most “innovative” show bikes. (Chrome pipe “above” headset is actually behind the bike and not part of it.)

This playful invention was crafted in 1939. The farmer who built it is pictured above it, astride the beast. (It resides in a private collection within 12,450 miles of the Twin Cities and belongs to a Mr. A, or a Ms. Z, or someone in between.)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 3:43 pm and is filed under Car parts, Motorcycle tales. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.