Month: July 2014

Pop Strutts (my grampa) created this bit of vehicular awesome from a lawnmower engine, some stray bicycle parts and wood scraps. There was no steering wheel, only a tiller.

The engine was a Briggs & Stratton 1/2 hp rope-starter. It had three gears, but to change gears you had to stop, move the drive belt a pulley over, and hope it didn’t sever your fingers while you moved it. There was an accelerator pedal that attached to the throttle, and a brake that consisted of a lever that forced a piece of metal into the rubber of one of the rear wheels.

To shut down the engine, there was a piece of spring metal with a wooden switch to short out the spark plug. It’d give you a nice zap if your finger missed the wood.

What’s not shown here is The Peckerwood. On the rear of the vehicle, Pop mounted a wooden image of a boy who mechanically rocked back and forth as the Go Cart moved, poking his steel wire “pecker” back and forth through a steel eye screw.  Papa Strutts probably removed it so as not to give a 10 year-old Bunk any nasty ideas, but I remember it. I had nasty ideas anyway, but not because of The Peckerwood.

[Rat Rods Archive here.]

[Update: November 2014 – this sold at a recent estate sale for $75.]