Long/Short....... In my stash of lil' books, there is a predominance of cart's and mini bikes.......My library is from late 50's, to early 60's........ I'de just like to know if they were THAT popular......? I'de think that gear heads were focusing on cars/tech,how too's....... BUT, I wasn't there. I would think there is always a transition period from a younger fellow to and older, but by looking, these lil's have an abundance of cart/mini adds...... Can someone explain the time frame,and why? I see things as being into rods/customs for the older mature'r set,,,,,, but to flood more than half of print with adds, makes me wonder what was going on then...........?Thoughts?
Excellent question. Can't help much, but I was born in '52, and when I was little, my little town of 29K people had at least 2 go cart tracks running full time, always crowded. My dad wouldn't let me ride them ( not sure I was old enough ), and he quit taking me to watch cause I whined nonstop wanting to try 'em. I remember teenagers and 20 somethings raising hell on those tracks, and then one day they were gone.
Time frame !!,yes ,, I was there, the magZ rack at the stores ,was the main sell point{not really many came by mail by sub.,and that store rack had a lot of comics too=So kids looked an got books with stuff they liked { we got away with thumbing through them,before buy}. Know we didn't have TV or inter net. that came along after a long time. Most homes in the 50s had radio,but no pic.,so the mags were what was going on in world we could see,other then our own town. Sure big guys got the car mags as well,yet having cart n mini bike stuff made it appeal to more buyers,even better also hooked kids into hot rods an customs. Many also have model airplanes n boat races,it all tied together,if it had a engine in it,that was all cool.
Oh Hell YEA every one of us wanted a minibike or Kart. I was born in 1949 and lived it. From the time I was about 9-10 getting one was a life goal then LOL. Like others have said those little books is where we got our info. I bet more lawn mowing, babysitting money, odds jobs collecting cans and bottles money, paper route money went for buying or building minibikes and carts than any thing else.
If you didn't live it ....you wouldn't understand it. And you have a collection of old little pages and you still don't get it.....unless you were born into a family of hot rodders, looking in the old magazines is where you dreamed and learned about hot rods and customs or hung out around garages or Wrecking yards...you experienced the hobby from ground level. That means you did it , learned from it ..good or bad, ..its called experiencing life and having fun. If you were a gearhead... that was your life..if you want to experience the lifestyle there is more to it than just saying your a car guy and just because you have a "man cave" with some trinkets setting around doesn't get it. Have a clue to the history and some back ground of the hobby that you want to be involved in, like I said if you didn't live it you wouldn't really understand it.. And then your asking why things like gokarts and minibikes are in there, apparently you don't have any issues with models and slot cars ...man you would really be lost and confused....and all them ads...wtf..how do you think the word about products got out.and how the publishers paid for having magazines available to the public...it don't matter what age you are when you get the bug you get into it at what ever level you can or is aloud.... most guys started with model building, then bikes ,gokarts on and on...its called living and just because you get older doesn't mean you can't still play with toys. Sent from my SM-T387V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Like Banger, I was born in '49. My Uncle Bud gave me my 1st two little books, I believe Rod and Custom. I wore those out (and gave them to his youngest son years later) and from then on I was hooked. Living in a small east coast town that was the only way to experience the thrills of the car world. I would go to the newsroom with my allowance and buy a few new mags (25 cents each) or Dad might take me to Western Auto to look at models ($1.49, Testors paint, 15 cents). No go carts, no slot car tracks, no hot rods, remember small town America. I did get an HO slot car set one Christmas and I practiced constantly, nobody could touch me! Wow, the memories are Still there. Thanks for helping me dig 'em up, Carp.
Hello, We lived in a world of cars, sports, comic books and art. But with all of the school stuff we learned, we tried to apply the skills to everything we did as kids into teenagers. That is what most kids do as interested explorers or inquisitive thinkers. Mistakes were made by the thousands, and we learned from each one, whether is was learning about shocks we got from fiddling with old broken radios, how to start fires without matches and how to get along with others. As little kids, pre-teens and into our teenage years, it was a world of wonderment. We tried almost everything. Even learning to swim at age 10 was an adventure. Jnaki Not everything in print was for kid’s understanding. The tech articles were great for looking at photos, but little else. It was fun to see what was actually inside of a real car motor. As we got older, those articles made a little more sense, but still were the boring parts of an exciting hot rod or rod and custom magazine. Those early publications gave us a look at what we saw in our neighborhoods. By 1955, it was handy that we lived in the Westside of Long Beach as Lions Dragstrip was nearby and we began to see more hot rods/cruisers. Now, that gave us the impetus to start “motorizing” just about everything we could modify. Here is a posted thread from a long time ago: Hello, We called these mini cycles...Doodlebugs in So Cal back in 58-60. Ours was a home made “Doodlebug.” The retail Doodlebugs were too expensive and ours was hand made from old grocery store chrome baskets. The bends in the lower frame was perfect for our needs. Just a few modifications, a bicycle head unit with handlebars and wheel barrow rims and tires with a bicycle gear hub for the chain. a throttle lever and cable from the lawnmower was mounted on the handlebars The modified lawnmower motor from our homemade go kart made this Doodlebug fast. Time to tell mom the lawnmower broke and that we needed a new one. One version used the small wheels and chain from the lawnmower, but the larger tires were better. The doodlebug was very cool and fun to ride around the neighborhood. Stopping was made up of thick soled tennis shoes or old dress shoes with thick soles. Stopping was an exciting adventure. There were a few errant shopping carts roaming around Long Beach...sorry... Thanks, Jnaki This guy had the right idea going back and forth from the pits, to the entrance, and to the spectator seats. Doodlebug at LIONS PITS
My buddy and I loaded a complete "37" front axle and wish bone on a wagon, pulled it about a mile, and got 75 cents for it. That let us buy two 25 cent car mags, two Cokes, and share a nickel bag of potato chips. We were 15 and hooked on cars. That was about 1959-60.
Oh, boy ! The memories of the go-kart tracks … how to reach back there & disable the governor. Bribing the operator for more laps with a Coors your buddy stole from his big brother. Getting thrown out for T boning somebody. We had one kid that was over 6' tall that was able to roll one. He was the hero of the 8th grade car guys for most of the year !
Hello, At least our U.S. Government regulations does not mention "hot rodding" of electric bicycles or scooters is against the law, like our friends from across the big pond, in Europe. Hot rodding or modifying anything is for creative minds that started the whole scene that we have come to enjoy over the years. But, some countries have limited the use and modifying of anything pertaining to electric motor bicycles and scooters. Bah, humbug! Jnaki At least those advertisements in the magazines made us think about the products or make changes it our own products. It seems like our goal as young teens was to modify anything on wheels and had some added power. My brother and I even tried our hand at making a single pipe custom header for our go kart motor borrowed from our mom's lawnmower. Ever try to port and polish a lawnmower head? A bunch of crazy kids did not know if it would work, but, if it works on big time car motors, it must work on lawnmower motors. Hot rodding modifications goes to all forms of transportation and fun activities. We could not let a stock electric motor run without some modifications or added bearings for faster speeds. Hot rodding is why we have liked the activity all of these years. What was there to modify and make it go faster? (Just about anything on wheels.) As we have heard many times in the past TV shows...MORE POWER...!
Growing up, I had always "modified" my bicycle (don't need no stinkin' fenders) to be faster. Then progressed to home-made motorized contraptions. My very first hot rod modification to a internal combustion engine was to make a CHROME header pipe for my home-made go-kart. Used a bicycle handlebar with a nice curve to it and was the envy of all my buddies. Still prefer shiny parts to this day!
Goin' through a phase. That's what mini-bikes and go-karts were for a good stretch of time. As a kid (born in 1950) I enjoyed the extra features of the karts, bikes and model cars, boats not so much. The publishers got my cash monthly and I believe that the guys that moaned and groaned about these "kids things" didn't really drop subscriptions and quit reading the mags. Writers whose names we've respected for over five decades were writing those articles. Budd "The Kat From AMT" Anderson will always remain a childhood hero. By the way, I dug all those ads in the magazines. As a midwest suburban kid with a 26" bicycle, they gave me more things to wish I had from the faraway west coast, and I still have my ten cent surfer's cross.
Tonka trucks ,tricyles , big bikes , stingray bikes ,mini bikes , go carts ,hot rods , in that order.
There was a gokart track just a couple of miles from my home back in the late fifties and early sixties. Couldn't afford anything with a motor. This picture is of my uncle at the wheel holding my youngest sister and my younger sister and I sitting on the boot. . Bill
that reminds me of the twenty nails hammered into the two by four and thinking ,this will be my axle .
The Jalopy Journal
