SCOOTER STORY
Have you ever wondered what motivated a man to create such an interesting mode of transport that is becoming increasingly popular? Well, let’s go and meet each other.
Let’s go back to 1902 when the French engineer Georges Gautier created the world’s first scooter called the «car seat». The inventor installed a comfortable armchair with armrests and a high back on a two-wheeled vehicle, removing the engine under the seat and making a gap between the seat and the steering column for easy seating.
Gautier was not only interested in the comfort of a motorcyclist. Completely new technical solutions were a chain drive from the engine to the rear wheel and the start of the engine with a detachable grip, as in cars. This invention acquired at once a large army of fans, which led to the massive copying of the moped in many European countries. Among those who did not recklessly make copies of other people’s inventions was American LeFebre. In 1909 he decided to improve the motorcycle design: he lengthened the base, which made the crew double-seated, made a solid level surface under the feet — an aluminium plate of 43x28 cm size, installed a lever fork in front. The new car was named New Era. But the ideas behind this design will win the hearts of Americans much later.
And in the 1910s, in America, a new passion was developing among street boys — driving scooters with a motor. This type of transport has come to be called a scooter, from the slang English verb «to scoot», which means «to run away from the place, to run away». Street youths armed with such helpers terrorized and terrorized small street vendors, leaving the scene with impunity. Since such means of transport have become popular not only with petty thieves but also with law-abiding citizens, entrepreneurs have put the production of crews on the stream.
In 1915, the American company Autoped Company of America began series of production of advanced machines called «autopedals». The car had tiny wheels, with the rear covered with a jacket, a platform footer, a folding handlebar, and an engine of power. A person travelling in such a vehicle could not afford a long journey resulting in simple fatigue, as there was no seat on such a vehicle. In 1919, Granville Bradshaw, an English inventor, decided to install the seat on a scooter. The Bradshaw car, called the ABC Scootamoto, had small wheels, a high steering wheel, a sprinkler, and a single-cylinder 125 cm3 behind the driver’s seat.
Other inventors, seeking to improve the design of the pedal, decided to retain not only the sprinkler and the tiny wheels but also the position of the engine in the front of the car. In 1920, a Unibus scooter was born, which differs only from the current engine position.
Having an external attraction and convenience, this car did not have a perfect transmission, a reliable engine and a long-lasting frame, so it was turned away by long-term fans of this mode of transport. Production of scooters stopped for almost 10 years. And only the American pilots didn’t give up on the scooters, which they scattered over huge areas of airports. At one of these airports, in 1935, I saw a scooter by young American entrepreneur Foster Salisbury, who came up with the idea that this is the kind of low-cost mode of transportation that a crisis-ridden country needs right now. Salisbury brought in his friend Austin Elmore, with whom he was successfully created in 1936, the Moto Glide scooter, which became the head of a modern line of scooters. This car had small five-inch wheels, a two-stroke 82 cc engine and an automatic gearbox. The scooter was a tremendous success, which encouraged friends to develop new constructive solutions. The young people asked Robert Ammon, the owner of Cushman, a lawnmower engine and power plant, to sell a thousand motors. Business friends gullibly left the blueprints of their scooter, which Ammon asked for, ostensibly to refine the engine for the scooter. A week later, young entrepreneurs had given up on Ammon on the pretext of lack of productive capacity. One can only imagine how outraged the companions were when, in late 1936, Cushman introduced its development of the Auto-Glide scooter to the buyer. To be fair, this scooter wasn’t a replica of Moto-Glide, but it looked much prettier.
But Robert Ammon wasn’t the only one who liked Salisbury’s ideas. The scooters were copied by large and small companies. And it was only thanks to Salisbury’s extraordinary intelligence that he managed to get ahead. In 1937, the inventor created the Aero Moto Glide with a four-stroke engine. One year later, Salisbury surprises his fans with a new model with an automatic centrifugal clutch and a clinker. American journalists awarded the tireless inventor the title «Henry Ford of the world of scooters». In the late 1930s, the scooters’ popularity is incredible, as evidenced by their appearance in the most fashionable glossy magazines.
During World War II, Cushman developed special scooter models for paratroopers.
After the Second World War, the scooter had a turbulent history, with factories in all the countries that had been locked up in the PVC having to switch to civilian production. For example, in Japan, Mitsubishi Silver Pigeon scooters were made of materials for aircraft construction. You didn’t even have to make the wheels, they were the chassis.
The situation in Italy was similar. The famous Vespa model, created in 1946 by the Piaggio concern, which specializes in aircraft construction, became the fashion legislator of the world of scooters. Vespa’s main competitor after 1947 was the Lambretta produced by another Italian company, Innocenti. If you look carefully at a photograph of this masterpiece, it is not surprising that it was built on a water pipe factory that was converted after the war.
This is the interesting story of the creation of eMoped, which continues to evolve and build its history to this day.
