Hang on to your hat, madam!
Check out this gentleman driving his Scoota-Car:
Vintage PR Photos: 1937 and 1939 Rytecraft Scoota-Car – “Slips In And Out (And Under) Traffic”
– Posted on January 28, 2022
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Curbside Classics Archives
Unenclosed? Heater? Crashworthy? YIKES! If I were in that car as in this photo and saw that truck behind me, well, I won’t say what I would do. Yours in mirth (and my girth), Tom
Hey, PT Barnum’s acolytes pay good money for that experience……
What a beautiful ad, right down to the “Amazing Hitler Hoax” sign. I’d buy a bridge (US term) from those guys. Not an auto, though.
I don’t know it I’m comforted or depressed that conspiracy theorists have apparently always been around.
That isn’t an ad. It is a PR photo, taken from a British street. The “Amazing Hitler Hoax” is a newsstand selling papers for the Evening Standard. Eighty years ago, major papers had two daily issues, morning and evening. The Amazing Hitler Hoax happens to be a headline for that evening’s Evening Standard. Herr Hitler used many ploys during the 1930s in order to gain leverage for Germany including hyper-inflation to pay off the Versailles Treaty debt, and claims of the need for any German cultures, regardless of borders, to be enclosed into his Reich. Those were hoaxes and ploys.
Germany’s hyperinflation happened in 1921-1923, mostly in the latter year. That’s ten years before Hitler took power.
The hyperinflation wasn’t a ploy to lower its reparation payments, which had to be made in gold or foreign currency. It was a result of Germany having to buy foreign currency to make those payments, with money it didn’t have. So essentially they just printed more and more and more…
Thank you
I knew that, but somehow I forgot when I was writing that. I’m getting forgetful in my old age.
“The Amazing Hitler Hoax happens to be a headline for that evening’s Evening Standard.”
Proving that click-bait predates the internet by many years.
In the lead photo, the truck driver would have no way of knowing they were there. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should!
At that point this scooter car becomes a chock block.
there’s always been a tradition for small cars in UK, due to the tax being based on engine size, think Austin 7, Morris 1000 and then of course the Austin/Morris Mini. I’ve had more than one of each of these over the last 60 years
but then you see crazy ones like this……
Don’t forget the Peel P50.
How small is too small? This small. It’s at a point where it’s combining the drawbacks of both a car and a motorcycle with the advantages of neither.
There’s a reason why most postwar European bubblecars had the “bubble” of weather protection of some sort, and postwar American street-legal golf cart/kiddie cars like the Eshelman and King Midget were usually pictured in spread-out suburban environments if shown in any kind of background context.
Dying instantly is the perfect way to avoid the horsepower tax!
I believe Rytecraft actually sold quite a few Scoota-Cars — they may have even made a pickup variant. Astonishingly, the manufacturer claimed a top speed of 45 mph, which I find hard to believe, and I wonder if anyone ever tried that and lived to tell the story.
One more picture below… a Scoota-Car military (or civilian defense) version:
If one didn’t like the Scoota-car’s stodgy styling, this French version of the same concept was also available.
“Popular with Scotchmen,” if you believe the text.
Safety cage, check.
Gas tank chest restraint, check.
Engine tucked between legs, but you’ll need a new athletic cup, check.
I have cups in stock, $25.00
Yep, inspection passed, $75.00 total please!
Anytime I’ve seen someone call a Scottish man a Scotchman it does not usually end well. Them is fighting words.
Frankly, the vehicle looks like fun. Half the American population lived outside crowded cities and these vehicles could have been safely used. My great grandfather rode an Indian motorcycle with a sidecar, while living in South-Central Kansas. He was in his 70s-80s, and if he was alive today, would have wanted a Hot Shot three wheeler.
Fun seems relative. Here in flyover country, we have a lot of elbow room for some serious scoot, 2.5 hp does not fill the need for speed.
You couldn’t use it on US roads then (or now), how would that thing deal with a pot-hole with those tiny wheels? You’re comparing a high-performance (Indians were fast) motorcycle with cheap go-carts.
They made a point of telling us the driver’s weight: “17-st” (17 stones) = 238 lbs. He could hardly have caused more of a ruckus today than he did then.
Fun to see these–though I suppose I’d only be comfortable driving curbside, with (hopefully) clear sight lines.
Getty Images has a few more for us:
Production data (two versions), Times of London no less:
“The low build with the fairly high engine revolution rate gives an impression of speed”
Sounds about right.
The early one hp version (1934) had a 98cc Villers two stroke; the later version (1936) upped that to a 250 cc version, with 2.5 hp. I still doubt the 45 mph speed even with the 250, but maybe so if the driver leaned way down like on a motorcycle.
I’m guessing that the military one above (Eric703) with the bigger wheels is a 1936.
Are those real horsepower or the RAC fiscal hp rating?
I don’t know.
Talk about hair shirts .
I like tiny vehicles and Motorbikes but this thing is ridiculous .
-Nate
That first photo reminds me of the original Fast and the Furious movie, where the lowered Honda Civic crosses underneath the big rig trailer. When I was driving my Son’s lowered Acura, SUVs and trucks would often lane change me, as I was always in the blind spot, so low that they couldn’t see me without looking carefully. Things would be worse with one of those Scoota Cars. I saw a Smart Car driving around town, it ‘s too bad that they didn’t return the kind of fuel economy that the small size seemed to promise.
I don’t remember what movie but I saw a stunt driver driving an early model Corvair underneath a semi trailer while they were on the highway too.
45mph must have been downhill at WOT 2.5hp has issues moving a very small motorcycle at anything called speed, Driving around in what is a motorised pedal car? nope not for me.
Well, not long ago I witnessed a Smart car rear ending a Nissan Pathfinder that had stopped due to a kid crossing the street unexpectedly. As it was, the following yuppie in his Smart did realize all of it too late and crashed into the Nissan at 10 … 20 mph. The disintegrating Smart dissolved into a remarkably pile of plastic debris spreading all over the street. And the driving yuppie had the “Nissan” logo 10 inches in front of his nose when he came to his final halt. Next: Out of the Nissan popped a large family of oriental roots, all of them eager to help the yuppie to get out of the smoking remains of the Smart. Luckily, he was not injured seriously. Needless to say: None of the passengers of the Nissan were hurt, too, and the only damage to the Nissan was some dents in the rear bumper and a loose license plate. The Smart had to be picked up by a wrecker with crane.
A serious car has to have some reasonable size! At last for me to consider buying it. (No, I do not buy Nissans anyway)
Joe
FINALLY! A ridiculously small car that is even less visible in traffic than my M-Spec Miata! I feel sometimes that I need one of those tall fiberglass whips put on rental scooters…
But at least I don’t have to do an impression of Jayne Mansfield as in Pic 1 above.
Didn’t WC Fields have one of these in one of his movies! I seem to remember him driving around in one inside his house…
Pretty cool! My pet rabbit would have a blast with this if she could drive.