Two-Wheeled Cars

THE SCRIPPS-BOOTH BI-AUTOGO

Left: The Scripps-Booth Bi-Autogo: 1912 Two passengers, side-by-side behind central driver. The Scripps-Booth Bi-Autogo could be considered to be the largest motorcycle ever built, or it could be regarded as a hefty 2-wheeled car. Given that it had a V8 engine and weighed 3200 pounds, (1,500 kg) I vote for the latter. Note the necessity for dual stabiliser wheels to take the weight. The two wheels were wooden-spoked and 37 inches in diameter. The engine was the first V8 produced in Detroit; however it only managed 45 HP from its 6-litre capacity. Power was transferred to the rear wheel by a four-speed manual gearbox. The Scripps had three seats and was steered with a normal steering-wheel. The Scripps was a one-off project built from 1908 to 1912 by Detroit artist & engineer James Scripps-Booth. Yes, that mass of tubing is the radiator. Given that most of the tubing is parallel to the air-flow, it cannot have been very efficient; perhaps that is why there is such a lot of tubing.

Left: The Scripps-Booth Bi-Autogo: 1912 The Scripps-Booth Bi-Autogo was preserved; it is currently on loan to the Owls Head Transportation Museum, from the permanent collection of the Detroit Historical Museum. The Scripps has a Wikipedia page.

THE MOORE CAR

The Moore-Car was less car.

Left: The Moore Car: 1910 No passenger. From Technical World Magazine Jan 1910 (Vol XII #5). Thanks to Paul Dunlop for drawing this article to my attention.

Left: The Moore Car: 1910 No passenger. From Technical World Magazine Jan 1910 (Vol XII #5)

The Moore car seems to have been developed considerably before it appeared at the 1917 Auto Show in Washington DC.

Left: The Moore Car: 1917 No passenger. Note the two stabilising wheels at the rear, and the odd way the front wheel seems to pass through the radiator. In fact the 'radiator' was a fake, as the two-cylinder engine was air cooled. For a long time this car was also unknown to Google apart from this poor quality poor-image.

Left: The Moore Car: 1917 This picture of a Moore car was taken at the 1917 Auto Show in Washington DC. Regrettably Miss Hilda Vann is unknown to Google, so it is doubtful if her film career was very sucessful. There are and have been several companies called 'Crescent Films' but so far none of them are of the correct era. There is in existence a 1917 brochure promoting shares in the Moore company. It gives a specification for the 1917 Model G Moore-Car, describing a two-cylinder, air-cooled 22 HP engine with magneto ignition and a separate electrical generator. There was a 3-speed gearbox and shaft drive with spiral bevel gearing; it appears there was no reverse gear. It had 36-inch half-elliptic springs, and a single bucket-type seat. It was billed as a light car, and definitely not as a motorcycle; since it only carried one person, this seems to me to be stretching the definition of a car a bit. Picture brought to my attention by Paul Dunlop.

It was reported that the stabiliser wheels would lift or lower at the touch of a button, but this seems to imply some rather sophisticated machinery that would be out of place on a lightweight car.

Left: The Moore Car: 1917 Regettably this picture is also of poor quality, but it shows some more features of the machine, such as the hybrid steering-wheel/handlebars arrangement. Picture brought to my attention by Paul Dunlop.

THE MONOTRACE CAR

Left: The Monotrace 2-wheeled car: 1925 One passenger in tandem. (behind driver) The Monotrace 2-wheeler was made in France from 1925 to 1928, under licence from Mauser of Germany. (Yes, that Mauser, the gun makers) It had two retractable stabiliser wheels. The passenger sat behind the driver (unlike the remarkable Sabella tandem car of 1913, where the driver sat behind the passenger) It was powered by a 510cc water-cooled single-cylinder 4-stroke engine. The water circulated through the small radiator at the front by thermo-syphon; there was no water pump. Very few were made and even fewer survive today. La Monotrace was made in St Etienne, France. The Monotrace was steered by a curious sort of wheel/handlebar that made up only a small part of a circle. Here a bulb horn is attached to the upper part of the wheel/handlebar. No windscreen is fitted. The 'Morgan' part of the name appears to be nothing to do with the British sports-car manufacturers, but the situation is currently not entirely clear. This photograph was taken when the first production models were being demonstrated.

Left: The Monotrace 2-wheeled car A Monotrace corners hard in some unknown sporting event, a stabiliser wheel jauntily cocked in the air. Date & place unknown at present.

Left: The Monotrace 2-wheeled car It's coming right for us! A Monotrace with stabiliser wheels lifted. Here the front of the 'steering wheel' appears to be outside the windscreen; to make this possible there would have to be no middle spoke as seen in the other Monotrace pictures. It is more likely we are seeing the 'steering wheel' through the windscreen, but due to the rotogravure it's hard to be sure.

Left: The Monotrace 2-wheeled car A fine picture of a Monotrace with a rudimentary windscreen fitted on its nose; this allows the 'steering wheel' to retain its central spoke. Single headlamp. Judging by the appearance of the houses in the background, I would judge that this picture was taken in one of the squares in central London.

Left: The Monotrace 2-wheeled car Another sporting event. The Monotrace seems to have overtaken a conventional 4-wheeled car. Single headlamp. Date & place unknown at present.

Left: A Monotrace car today: a restored model from 1928 This picture by kind permission of the restorers: KOHLER AG, Riedtwil The Kohler website has a fascinating account of the restoration process with lots of pictures here.

THE AVRO MONOCAR

THE CERRETI CAR

Left: The Cerreti Motocar: 1929 Apart from this single image, for a long time nothing had been found about the Cerreti. I previously noted there was an writer of motor car books around called Felice Cerreti, but he appears to have had nothing to do with it.

Left: The Cerreti Motocar: 1929 No passenger. The Cerreti 2-wheel car first appeared when it won a Gold Medal at the International Contest of Inventors in Paris on 11th May 1929. It was then exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1930. It was built by E Cerreti and P Valen in Courbevoie, a commune 5 miles north-west of Paris; part of La Défense, Paris's business district, is in southern Courbevoie. The company was best known for their manufacture of pillion seats, silencers, footrests, and other motorcycling accessories. The Cerreti had a 500 cc engine with magneto ignition.

Left: Advertising leaflet for the Cerreti Motocar: 1929 The photograph at upper left confirms that the poor-quality picture at the start of this section really is of the Cerreti. The only model actually built was the one at centre left of the leaflet. The two-seater with enclosed cabin at bottom left never progressed beyond this simple drawing.

Left: Advertising leaflet for the Cerreti Motocar: 1929 The front cover of the leaflet.

Left: The Cerreti chassis: 1929 This does not seem to be a very good drawing. For example, no means of driving the rear wheel is shown.

Left: The Cerreti Motocar: 1929 The Cerreti next to its intended sidecar. It looks rather heavy and boxy compared with the car. Note the stabiliser wheels have been removed; they are not required with a sidecar having a third wheel.

THE WHITWOOD-OEC MONOCAR

Left: The Whitwood-OEC Monocar: 1934-36 One passenger in tandem. (behind driver) A Whitwood Monocar, manufactured by the Osborn Engineering Company. This was founded by Frederick Osborn who began building bicycles, then turned to motorcycles in 1901, becoming a well-known manufacturer. The Whitwood was a two-wheel car with retractable outrigger wheels operated by a lever like a handbrake. It could be fitted with three engine models from 250 to 1000cc. It was built from 1934 to 1936, but it appears only six examples were built. There is Wikipedia page on the Whitwood, though bizarrely it is in German. Google Translate is your friend. Image from Whitwood brochure

Left: The Whitwood-OEC Monocar: 1934-36 Clearly legroom was a bit limited in the Whitwood. Not a good car for long journeys. Image from Whitwood brochure

Left: Whitwood brochure text Some very persuasive advertising copy here, but it does not seem to have helped sales. Hopefully this will be readable to you all. No better version has so far been found. Image from Whitwood brochure

Left: The Whitwood-OEC Monocar: 1934-36 The Whitwood had two seats with behind them a small luggage compartment. Initially, the engine was mounted under the front seat, but in 1935, a Mk II Whitwood was produced with the engine in the rear and improved steering. It had a plywood body and a removable hood with side-screens. The text on this picture is unfortunately illegible. No better version of it appears to exist.

THE CONVERTED NERACAR

Left: The converted Neracar: 1948 No passenger. For a long time this machine was described here as a Verdon Roe car. This is now known not to be the case as the Vernon Roe car (note corrected spelling) or Avro car was a quite different machine. The caption reads: "Mr E A Lawson in his NeraCar based FF machine in 19?8." The date has now been deciphered by Chuck Bencik, to whom many thanks, and it is definitely 1948. As Chuck pointed out, the style of the shirt-collar confirms this. FF means Foot-Forward, and refers to a kind of motorcycle where the rider sits with feet ahead in a car-type sitting position, rather than with feet below and astride, as on normal motorcycles. The NeraCar (no, not my pun) was an FF motorcycle made in the USA from 1921 - 1926. Mr Lawson had therefore converted a machine that was already more than 20 years old. It appears that the bodywork was added by Vernon Roe; it was probably a one-off conversion.

Left: Two Neracars in Holland: 1931 The Neracar had a good reputation for reliability and stability, thanks to its low-slung frame and hub-centre steering. However, production ceased in 1926, five years before this picture. It looks as though adding rudimentary bodywork to this motorcycle would be relatively straightforward, but the sides would have to be left open so you could get a foot to the ground on stopping, as in the Verdon Roe picture above.

Left: A Neracar in a museum: 1921 The Neracar was produced in several forms in both the USA and the UK. The first models had a single-cylinder two-stroke engine of only 221 cc and a friction-drive transmission that gave five ratios.