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Early buggy. Is some of it legit?


PAV8427

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Home built modern except maybe the wheels, body and springs. The front axle is Ford Model T. There is a page on Facebook for reproductions. Many of the cars on that page are not exact replicas. 

Horseless carriage replica's | Facebook

The builder may have used these plans to get some ideas.

Facebook

Years later MI was still offering those plans for sale. Someplace I have/had a copy of them but have not come across my copy in maybe 20+ years. 

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When this hobby was beginning back in the 1930s, and onward into the 1950s, a lot of people didn't "get" it that the idea was to find a real early horseless carriage, and save it, preserve it as a correct piece of history for future generations. Literally hundreds of people would dig up some old horse-drawn carriage and try to make their own horseless carriage. These things keep crawling out of the woodwork, and a lot of people continue to build them. Some people, just for the fun of it, have no delusions about the cars being real historic horseless carriages, while other people are totally convinced about their authenticity.

This one may have been built in more recent years. Model T Ford parts are plentiful, and easy to adapt for these things. So they often get used in such creations.

 

I have run into a couple people that had the automobile that great uncle "So-n-so" built in 1895, perfectly preserved just how great uncle So-n-so built it. Point out several model T parts on it and then they tell you that Henry Ford stole the parts ideas and refuse to pay great uncle the million dollars he promised! (True story!) 

 

I would be curious to see what sort of engine they used, and how the mounted it and connected everything. Some of what I can see is very bad design. I doubt that front axle could support the carriage for very long under any real use. Some of the workmanship looks pretty good. But it doesn't really look like the methods and materials used in those early days of the automobile.

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The rear axle and jackshaft are possibly a early day conversion for a built as horse drawn buggy. Conversions of this nature were for a time on the market in the early days of motoring.  Some would mount a single cyl engine lika a early motorcycle would use and a few even used an electric motor and battery set up. They didn't last on the market very long. You would have to take a good look at it to determine if it was made in the early days or a later , say 1950's manufacture.

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The more I look the less I see that is very old. Fresh holes without paint in them, modern hardware, lack of worn spots on the wood, wrong wood joints, etc.

I don't see any controls for the friction drive and the disk looks a bit small.

Maybe a 1950s assembled chassis that was finished or redone in the 60s or 70s.

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RE: Left hand drive

Although that car is obviously a fantasy vehicle and recent creation, recent being anywhere from the end of WWII until today, that fact that it is left hand drive is neither here nor there.

For example, Waverley Electrics were all left hand drive dating back to the beginning of production in the late 1890s.

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