American buckboard
American Buckboard Corporation was an American automobile manufacturer based in Los Angeles, California from 1955 to 1956 .
history
The brand name was American Buckboard for the first year and Bearcat from 1955 to 1956 .
The small two-seater roadster had a GRP body and five wheels. The rear axle was right behind the seats and was not powered. Behind it was an air-cooled V2 motorcycle engine that developed 25 bhp (18.3 kW) and powered a drive wheel installed in the very back in the middle via a chain. The distance between the front and rear axles was 1778 mm. The whole car was 3048 mm long.
The little car cost less than 3000 dollars , but the name did not prove to promote sales and the car was way too expensive. Therefore, the car was sold the following year without any changes as a Bearcat (English: Marderbär ) for 1000 US dollars. The new concept was also unsuccessful.
In English, buckboard is a very simply constructed, four-wheeled motor vehicle for one or two people, which flourished briefly around 1910. As a toy and fun vehicle, they survived until the 1960s.
In the mid-1950s, you could buy a new upper middle-class passenger car (e.g. a DeSoto , Mercury , Oldsmobile or Packard Clipper ) for $ 3,000 , and a base model from Chevrolet or Ford cost less than $ 2,000.
literature
- John Gunnell: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1946-1975. Krause Publications, Iola 2002, ISBN 0-87349-461-X .
- George Nick Georgano (Editor-in-Chief): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile. Volume 1: A – F. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 , pp. 50 and 137. (English)