“Death Defying Combat” which shows the 1905 Premier racing against the Winton
(first posted in 2007) After five years living in the quiet, sheltered and nurturing environment of Iowa City, Iowa, my family was preparing to move to Towson, Maryland. I was twelve, that pinnacle year of childhood, and blissfully ignorant of the long dark tunnel of adolescence just ahead. And in those very last days of innocence in the heartland, I was graced with a peak automotive experience.
It was my final summer spent with the Mennonites. The preacher and I were working at their neighbor’s farm, helping to prepare for an old-fashioned barn-raising after their huge main dairy barn burned down. For two hot days, I nailed down endless floor boards, while the men prepared the rafters for the final assembly. Towards the end of that second day, putting away nails in a shed, I had a genuine “barn find”: the chore scooter.
The short, squat creation is best described as a mini-me version of Henry Ford’s 1903 “999” racer. Roughly similar to the one in this picture, it was a bit bigger and had a much larger Wisconsin one-cylinder air-cooled industrial engine. Two back-to-back three-speed transmission from junk cars converted its thumping torque into nine speeds (as well as three reverse gears). Their output fed directly into a narrowed automotive rear axle, on which an old tractor seat was mounted, facing a junk-yard steering wheel. A small platform behind the seat was big enough for a couple of milk cans, tools, etc.
The chore scooter’s pre-ATV mission: scoot the farmers and whatever small loads needed hauling around their spread. To my eyes, this proto-auto, the archetype of all four-wheeled automotive vehicles, was perfection. It was the ideal blank slate, the veritable automotive white canvas upon which to express fully the range of my childhood auto-imagination. That afternoon, as I tooled around the farm on its bare bones, the chore scooter eagerly metamorphosed into every vehicle of my childhood dreams. And with that huge range of nine gear ratios, every type of automotive dream was readily realized.
With a twitch of the wheel on a graveled curve, I was heading sideways for Monte Carlo in a Saab 96. In low-low gear, playing those split rear brakes, I crawled up the steepest banks in a Dellow trials special. Pounding across the rough field, I caught air in my CJ-3 Jeep.
And cutting a circle in the packed dirt of the steer yard, I let her fly, like the “Mad Russian” Bill Vukovich in his Kurtis dirt track roadster.
I revved up the beleaguered old Wisconsin, leaned back, popped the clutch and lifted a wheel (or two?) pulling a hole-shot in my G/Altered at the Summer Nationals.
I cruised down the lane in my vintage Mercer Raceabout.
Out on the gravel road, I shifted both trannies into top gear and opened her up. Hunched down, I flew down the Mulsanne towards Sharon Center in my Jag D-Type at somewhere between 40 and 180mph.
That glorious summer day, every automotive thrill was mine for the taking. When I sheepishly returned to the farmyard low on gas, Mr. S grinned, told me to fill’er up and go have some more fun. This was unexpected, as joy riding is not part of the Mennonite ethos. But unlike my stern preacher host, this round middle-aged man had a ready smile and wink. He knew a little fun wasn’t going to take me and the chore scooter straight to hell.
So I made the most of my opportunity. I knew it might be a long time, if ever, before I’d have another chance to drive such a perfect set of wheels. When I reluctantly swung shut the shed door on the crackling-hot scooter, I somehow knew that I was closing other doors of my life.
The men raised the barn the very next day. I felt privileged to watch the well-orchestrated spectacle, knowing I was a witness to an increasingly rare event. Well over a hundred church members and neighbors showed up in their cars and horse drawn buggies. The women cooked dinner and set out long tables under the trees. Using block and tackle, the men lifted and assembled the huge rafters, posts and beams. I mostly watched– too young to work with the men up on the rafters, too old to play with the children.
At day’s end, when a fully-framed enormous barn stood in front of me, I felt as if I’d been witness to a farewell performance, a final lesson designed to instill a lasting insight into the value of self-reliance, and the power of community.
In recent years, I’ve been entertaining thoughts about a “project” car. I’ve had visions of a four-port-head Model T Speedster, a Triumph TR-3, a Bugatti Type 35 replica, a Caterham 7, a 1930’s dirt-tracker, and a CJ-3 Jeep, among many others. They’ve been received, contemplated and, thus far, rejected.
In my quixotic search, I’ve been looking for that one elusive vehicle that encompasses all of their qualities, and more. So I’ve been struggling to go deeper and locate the well-spring, the proto-type of my visions. In the middle of writing this article, awash in the memories of that magical late-summer afternoon, I’ve finally realized the fount of my unresolved automotive yearnings: the chore scooter my riding mower. The grass is getting mighty tall.
Update 4/10/21: the riding mower finally got retired two years ago. I’m back to push mowers. Better exercise. But the xB, shown here when it was just acquired, has become that “project car”. In fact right now it’s up on jack stands getting a lift kit installed so that I can take it on the same kinds of places I took the “chore scooter”.
Really surprised to see a pic of a Dellow on these pages. I didn’t realise anyone outside of the UK knew these ever existed. The car shown is a Mk 11 model, which still had axles and drive train from a “flathead” Ford 10.
Love vintage English trials, from what I’ve read about it. It’s the form of motor sport that I most would have liked to do. I’ve always loved coaxing 2WD cars to do things they aren’t supposed to!
I think the split rear brakes are a/k/a “fiddle brakes.”
That was a fun story, I felt like I was there with you!
Thanks for reminding me why I love cars 🙂
This reminds me of my family’s Snapper 28″ Hi-Vac riding mower with the thundering 8 horsepower Tecumseh engine dad bought brand new.
Although I never forgave him for not springing for the optional electric start, I did learn you could reach back with your left arm and override the governor, dump the clutch, and catch air with the front wheels whenever you wanted.
Lord only knows what speed I ran that poor engine up to so, so many times. Overspeeding the engine was also excellent for charging through the absurd amount of scrub oak leaves on the ground found every spring and fall. We’d mulch those leaves with the mower until they were essentially dust; it was that or burn them, and dad would rather let me abuse the hell out his mower than burn the neighborhood down, I suppose.
Tecumseh engines never enjoyed the reputations that Briggs or Kohler units did, but ours suffered through a good 7 or 8 years before it started making ragged, awful sounds on an otherwise average summer’s mow. I knew it was the end, and about a minute after I drove it up to the driveway, parked it idling, and got off it to look for a hole in the block or some other telltale sign, the expected hole appeared right before my eyes with a plop of oil and a few chunks of metal being thrown about two feet. Game over.
The riding mower I’m sitting on there has a Tecumseh OHV 13 engine. I was wary, but it was heavily discounted. The carburetor lower half is made of plastic, and real piece of junk. I have to replace it at least once a year. I also had a major oil leak, which forced me to take it partially apart, other than that….
My dad used 3 Tecumseh 31/2 horse vertical singles as replacements for the JAP on his Howard Bulldog rotary hoe none lasted more than 2 seasons before rattling to a smoking stop, He then bought a more expensive Briggs which outlasted the drive train, I learned about 4 stroke engines dismantling and reassembling those Tecumseh lemons.
One wonders how the late Chief Tecumseh would feel about his name being used on such a poor item. Would the Shawnee nation complain?
I really enjoy reading these articles and they remind me of my dad’s side of the family a bit.
Gramps was born in Manchester, England in 1929 and Granny was born in Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island in 1930. My Dad and his sister were born in England before spending the first five or so years of their life mostly in Africa. They all moved to extreme northern Baltimore County in the mid-1960s, my Uncle was born, and the family had a farm as well as Sheep Dogs. They relocated to Cortland County in the early 1970s and had another farm with Sheep Dogs until the mid-1980s. Thankfully their late 1800s Cortland County house was saved by some Amish and the farm land is being used again. Ironically enough the house was wired for electricity in the mid-20th Century, but now it is no longer used. From the time they moved to Maryland until 1997 they were exclusively a Saab family and have a bunch of nice stories.
A fitting end to a great series of growing up. Right at the turning point in life from Ozzy Nelson to Ozzy Osbourne.
Another installment I missed before. There is something special about the age of 12 for a gear head. A combination of innocence and awareness that is not duplicated at any other age.
At 12, I spent my time driving my father’s riding mower, a 5 hp rear engine unit that was the store brand from Trustworthy Hardware. I had the very same kind of fantasies, with some pickup truck thrown in. Less frequently I got to drive the Oliver 550 tractor that he owned, but this was only under supervision (imagine that!) when there was a need to use it.
Ive seen a double gearbox set up once before on a tractorised Model T Ford it had a Chev 4 box fitted behind the planetary set up for extra low gearing, Ed touched on the T tractor kits in his N article was this standard with the kit? the one I saw looked very home made like it was constructed from whatever was laying around at the time on a backblocks farm.
Must be an old pic if the Xbox is wearing its’ stock hubcaps instead of the red steelies.
A nice story ! .
At that age I too was a Farm boy….
I was either 11 or 12 when I decided to resurrect the old rusted out 1959 Ford F-100 sitting beside the Car Barn along with other derelicts .
I never bothered to ask anyone and no one said ‘ stop ‘ so i got it running and fixed all the little things wrong with it , as you said , great dreams and plans for a 12 year old….
Those home built things were usually called ” doodlebugs ” , I lusted after one because ‘A’ Model Fords or old 1920’s Nash cars were used more than anything else . never got one though =8-( .
-Nate
Slightly off-topic, but I loved that lawnmower road movie ‘The Straight Story’. I still see you from afar as a ‘Speedster body with tweaked Veedub motivation’ kind of guy.
That is a wonderful story! (Somehow I missed it the first time around.) The barn raising is a quintessential American community experience, and it was nice to hear an account firsthand. And of course, my inner child is envious of you getting to tool around on that chore scooter.
A well-told tale from long before I’d discovered CC .
Fifty-five years later, I don’t know if would be easier or *harder* to source the recycling-yard components to recreate the chore scooter, but it sounds like a worthy project…the idea of three transmissions lined up like that is fascinating!
A good pairing with Dan Stern’s Slant 6 story. My perfect automotive summer was at the age of 15, when my grandfather let me drive his car on the back roads, paved and unpaved, in the mountains near Front Royal, Virginia. His car? A Slant 6 Dart.
Age 12 – looking back, I agree. Significant in growing up. Cars and girls.
Cars at that time still involved AMT kits and brochures from dealers.
But then – girls. A very cute one, who lived about six blocks away, had a mom & granny who were friends with my mom. And something unusual happened. Her mom had, amazingly to a kid who always liked Thunderbirds, a ’62
Sports Roadster convertible! (My mom was driving a four door sedan). So you know, these were the rich folks from the right neighborhood.
I went with her family on a boat ride with her grandfather. The mom, the girl, her brother and I rode in the T-Bird convertible to the dock on the river – maybe 15 miles and a fun ride for sure. Some sort of fast speedboat (I didn’t care about the boat; I liked being around the car and especially the girl).
The steering mechanism linking the wheel to the outboard on the transom failed somehow; the boat could not be steered by the captain. I had a mind, was skinny and not unfamiliar with tools. There was a simple rope mechanism connection. I crawled under the “dash”; figured it out; fixed it and we were on our way.
That was a satisfying early mechanical victory but sad to say it did not lead to anything with that girl – who I admired from a distance for several years.
As a 12 year old I would have considered driving a chore scooter the equivalent of dying and going to heaven. My parents were the “you’ll shoot your eye out, kid” kind of people so I had to sneak in my thrills when I could. Getting to drive an outboard boat at 13 was pretty cool, as was getting to drive a buddy’s Honda mini bike around a field near our house. Once in a while my dad would let me drive the car on the back roads, so I knew how to drive well before I actually got my license. As an adult I still enjoy driving for thrills, and my in-laws let me drive ATV’s around their fields and through the woods. At 57 (almost 58) my inner 12 year old still gets a kick out of it, with the added bonus of a cold beer afterwards.
Many thanks for the barn raising videos.
When I was in high school, I built something very close to the pictured “garden tractor” as they were called hereabouts. 6 horsepower Tecumseh engine, primary belt drive with moveable idler for a clutch, secondary chain reduction drive to a 36 Plymouth 3 speed transmission (two in line would have been too long) which drove a 1950 Ford rear axle I narrowed to about a 34 inch tread width. I used the parking brake cables to make “turning brakes” (two separate pedals side by side, but able to be pushed together or separately.) I made an attachment lift, and we had a small single bottom land plow, a spike tooth harrow, a one row cultivator (and to use it as a straddle-row cultivator, I concocted 20″ rear and 15″ front tires to substitute for the 15″/12″ tires normally on it), a furrower and a hiller. We used the furrower, cultivator, and hiller when we raised potatoes for several years. I even tried using the furrower to dig potatoes, and it did quite well in light soil. We also pulled everything we had (wagons, trailers, etc.) with it. Eventually I found a David Bradley snow plow, and adapted that to it as well.
We used that rig for years until we got into larger “real” farm equipment. I’ve still got my homemade tractor, though, and I still occasionally use it 55+ years later when nothing else will do quite as well as it will. The welding and fabrication skills I developed doing that and several similar projects as a kid helped put bread on the table later in my working career (I even became a shop teacher.) It also made me a better driver, because farm work made driving on the road when I turned 16 no real challenge or thrill at all.