There was a time when the words ‘made in America’ meant something. We’ve since moved away from having a manufacturing economy to a service industry economy. In my opinion, the scooters and motorcycles from that era are something we should celebrate and be more proud of. From what I hear, even though owning a Harley-Davidson Scooter may sound really cool to some, it is not one of our greatest examples of American workmanship. It’s a pity that Harley-Davidson didn’t try a little harder to make some great scooters back then. By the time the mid-1940’s came about, The European scooter varieties were hitting the market with newer styles and technology that was hard to compete with. The American scooters were in their prime right after the Great Depression because people were tight on money and they needed cheaper modes of transportation. Mass transit systems never developed very well in most all of the major cities across the USA, except New York and Chicago. Riding the bus never captured the heart of the thrill seeking American mentality, and the oil companies were positioning for power back then and demanded that the Railroad companies abandon their plans to develop more efficient mass transit rail systems. The reason they were successful at strong arming the railroads was simple – the car manufacturers would stop shipping their car and busses on the railroads if their demands were not met.
This was just the recipe for a small sized, two-wheeled vehicle like the Scooter to come into its own and by the late 1930’s Salsbury, Cushman and Mead-Moto-Scoot hit the market with a tremendous roar. It was hailed as America’s newest mode of transportation and the true heroes of the day were the masterful artists and advertising companies that marketed these new marvels to the general public. They got 100 to 120 miles to a gallon of gas with minimal operating costs. What more can an economically depressed individual ask for? We had to be more practical back then (as we do now), and scooting was a great solution for many people, and, as fate would have it, it’s also a great transportation solution in today’s economy if you don’t mind all the dangers of heavy traffic. Yes, back then for about $70 to $100 you could be the proud owner of a Cushman Auto-Glide or a Moto-Scoot Challenger that, according to their advertisement, was rivaled only by the “Magical Carpet of Baghdad”. Where do I sign up? Yes, for only 1/3 cent per mile you can just “Glide” around town. For one-tenth of what an automobile would cost you, you can be living the good life and expand your social circle instead of watching the grass grow at home. By 1939, you could even have a Constructa-Scoot package delivered right to your door for only $29.50, assuming you can talk dad into giving you his extra lawn mower engine. If not, they will sell you one with an engine for only $59.50 (assembly required of course). The first scooters of this era weren’t exactly technologically advanced for the time, but one company broke away from the fray to set bar a little higher. The Salsbury company introduced the Self-Shifting Transmission in 1938 with their Moto-Glide. This particular advancement in mechanical engineering involved a belt running between two pulleys as the primary drive with the traditional linked chain hitched to the rear axle sprocket as the secondary drive. What this cool new innovation did was give the rider an automatic clutch and a transmission torque converter that seamlessly went from a gear ratio of 14:1 at low speeds to 4:1 at high speeds. Naturally, this set the other scooter manufacturers on their heels and they all had to scramble just to keep their share of the market. Besides all the crafty copywriters, Salsbury was the true hero of the Scoot world. It’s even rumored that Mr. Salsbury sent a salesman around Europe with top-secret blueprints and photos trying to get manufacturers there to build and sell his company’s scooters. Nobody would go for the deal though because they all had to worry about the eventual war that was looming ahead of them on the horizon. So the salesman came home without striking a deal in Europe. Even though Mr. Salsbury didn’t go on that particular business trip, he believes that Piaggio was one of the companies that were approached on that business trip. There is no record in the Salsbury archives, but it may well have been the seed that was planted in the Piaggio corporation, who then was an aviation manufacturing company. Shortly after the war ended, the Paparino scooter was developed by Piaggio. It was an ugly prototype that was named after Donald Duck to rival the small Fiat Topolino car that was named after Mickey Mouse. I don’t know, the French love Jerry Lewis and the Italians love Disney for the same reasons the Americans liked The Lone Ranger. After receiving ridicule and public humiliation over the design of the Paparino, Piaggio went back to the lab and in 1946 the first Vespa was born. This time they named their prototype after the sound of the engine because it sounded like a buzzing wasp. You know the rest of the story....
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