My car looked like Fred Flintstones. Leadfoot is probably too young to know what I'm talking about.
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Actually my father hand built a small car for my brother and me back in the early 50's. Long before such things as go-karts were poplar. Midget dirt track racers were the in thing back then. Our "car" had angle iron frame and used half of a 30's Chevy grill for our grill. We had a hand formed steering wheel the actuated the steering gear that turned the front wheels that were on an articulated front axle so the tires were always in contact with the ground. It was powered with a lawn mower engine that sent it's power through a Willy's 3 speed transmission to a pinion gear rear end driving the rear wheels. The rear axle was mounted on 2 small coil springs on each side. We had a clutch but no brakes.
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We would let it coast to a stop on the engine compression unless a quicker stop was required and then we would "jam" it into reverse. Dad was never too happy when we tore up the rear gears. We had that car until I went to college. We used to run it around our small country town's neighborhood dirt streets or or take it to a neighbors horse farm and race it around his dirt track used for horse race training. Had many years of fun with it and certainly was the envy of the other neighborhood kids. Brings back lots of memories.
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