The actual story of what the allies did to Germany after the surrender in 1945 will probably never be fully told. It is safe to say that a lot of post-WWII developments in the western hemisphere was a direct result of our 'possessing' German technology. Two come to mind; the jet engine and Von Braun's missiles.
In obscurity, there was a German motoren werke, DKW. They built cars and motorcycles. The initials DKW stand for dampf-kraft-vagen, which translated means "steam driven car". A left over from their turn-of-the-century success, no doubt.
As reparations for their WWII loss, Germany gave up a great deal of technology. DKW lost its motorcycle engineering design and tooling to an American company, Harley Davidson. One of DKW's time tested designs was a smaller single-cylinder scooter.
Harley got a hold of it and for about ten years made a good run of small scooters. This one is a 175cc "Pacer".
Kind of a shame to realize we still "rape and pillage" as victors in war. But war is a dirty business.
Anyway, there's a fella south of here that has this fine restored specimen (25 miles on the odometer) for sale. I thought about keeping it around for the grandkids, but I don't have any room. It is a clean bike. Someone will get an oldie but goodie.
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That looks over-restored from here. The original paint was probably alkyd enamel and what's on the machine now appears to be just too good. The other glaring flaw is that there's no oil dripping from the bottom of the crankcase, thus making the whole thing appear to be a Japanese repro, not a real Harley product.
Here's a pic I just found through Google - but it doesn't say what it is. I'll keep trying:
Looks like it could be a BSA M20
Gavin:
I'm pretty sure that's a Royal Enfield model WD CO. It's got some distinctive features that separate it from all the WWII era look-alike brit bikes. I'm no expert though.
I believe you nailed it. I had it narrowed down to a Royal Enfield due to the distinctive engine layout but couldn't figure out the specific model.
I believe y'all are correct. But they sure are close. I'd almost bet the frames are the same and the engines are what are different. Gov't design specs during the war would have many common elements.
Is this the world's first Okra combine, upright vacuum cleaner, or golf ball collector ?? :-S
It's an Enfield
> I believe you nailed it. I had it narrowed down to a Royal Enfield due to the distinctive engine layout but couldn't figure out the specific model.
It's either a 500cc or 350cc, indistinguishable from each other except for minute differences. After WWII RE had a "Bullet" model, but there again came in 350 and 500cc flavor.
From the looks of it, I would say it's a "Redditch" RE, called so by the place of manufacture, Redditch, England. Prized over models manufactured elsewhere,
> Is this the world's first Okra combine, upright vacuum cleaner, or golf ball collector ?? :-S
That's my older cousin Morris (Mo) Cash, on his Cushman that eventually filtered down to my brothers and me. This particular scooter has been the topic of many Thanksgiving dinners recollections.
By the time I got it, a C-celled flashlight was friction taped to the handlebars for a headlight and the fender skirt and sheet metal had been jettisoned, for weight and speed concerns, no doubt.
I believe I was the last owner...besides the dude that ran the scrap yard. It died a warrior's death when Holden decided it could be used as a dirt bike. His injuries kept him from actually walking up and receiving his HS diploma.
Enfield WD model
> Gavin:
> I'm pretty sure that's a Royal Enfield model WD CO.
I did some reading and you're probably spot on. I did learned something I didn't know about War era Enfields. WD designation stood for War Department..AND there were no 500cc WD's produced. They were all 350cc. Apparently the 500cc versions of the same motorcycle were all manufactured for the civilian market and would not carry the "WD" in the serial number.
...learn something new every day!
Enfield WD model
Speaking of distinctive features, in "googling up" that Royal Enfield model name I stumbled on another WWII specific model, the Welbike. It was designed to be delivered to the field in a container, by parachute. It looks like the two soldiers pictured might be thinking "What the hell?"
Cash boys and their contraptions
I guess the Cash boys fascination with motorscooters probably stemmed from the fact that Momma Cash never drove. She never wanted to, either. Even riding in an automobile was an unnatural act for her and it showed on her face. So all of Momma Cash's whelps were usually stuck at the homestead unless we walked.
At 14 years of age one could obtain a real-life driver's license for a motorcycle. We had cousins not far away that had already chosen the two-wheeled transportation mode. Cole, my oldest brother, was first to "ride". He came home smiling on a twin-cylinder BSA one afternoon and Holden and my eyes glazed over. I saw the fear in Momma's eyes as she dropped her head and shook it as she walked back into the house. The die had been cast.
We scrounged up every internal combustion powered two wheel piece of junk we could get our skinners on. Some were downright dangerous.
I can't remember where we nabbed it, but we wound up with just a frame of a mini-bike similar to this:
In a few days we had traded and dug up some old go-cart wheels and a 3.5 horse horizontal shaft Tecumseh engine. In no time at all we were ready for its maiden launch.
In our haste we had foregone the detail of how to stop the thing. After all, we were more worried about getting it going than stopping it. It had no brakes. I guess we thought those would come later, after our proof-of-concept launch.
It was decided that Holden would pilot and the landing would occur in front of the house. The old dirt drive took a sharp turn and there was a natural flat Bermuda landing spot, complete with a 36" elm. Somehow we reasoned that we would tie a rope off to the elm and wait for Holden to enter the grass area. We had measured the handlebars and knew exactly how high the rope needed to be to "catch" Holden and the mini-bike. It all sounded perfectly reasonable to me...
That thing ran like a scalded dog. Holden made several passes on the blacktop back and forth in front of the place. Each pass was faster than the last. He finally signaled to "circle the wagons" which meant the next pass we would catch him as he drove into the grass.
My mind has an image burned into it of Holden stretched out perfectly horizontal, four feet above the ground, tethered by a rope under his chin. We had just invented the term "clothes-lined"...and there was no wash line involved at all. The rope had slipped up over the handlebars and wrangled Holden right in the throat.
The pull on the rope was greater than any of us had imagined. At his apogee the rope pulled from our hands and he sailed on a few more feet and fell flat on the ground, windless. We thought he was dead. The mini-bike rolled on another thirty yards and was cushioned against the Tensley's field fence. The Tecumseh engine was still firing and popping as it lay snagged.
We had to fib to Pops about how Holden got a rope burn on his neck. If I remember right the story was it happened "climbing a tree". I remember Pops looked at me as if to check the validity of the story. I just nodded "yup"...
Lucky Holden didn't break his neck. :pinch:
Never seen anything like that. Friend of mine down the road when we were growing up had one of those Rupp pull-starts that we turned into a dirt bike and drove everywhere we could with it.
