My old friend Matthew had a tether car when he was about 10 years old, it was a beautiful red racer with a .19 engine, and it ran like greased lightning... However, he didn't want to tether it, so one day he fired it up and turned it loose on the street in front of his house. The car did great for about 50 yards, then veered wildly to one side, spun, and hit the curb. By the time it stopped, it had slammed into the neighbors car, doing about 60 mph. It left a dent and a caused quite a racket, and Matthew got his backside whooped. This was around the Summer of 1968, and these cars were made of metal and were pretty heavy. It looked like their car was hit with a baseball bat. The funny part was that the tether car didn't stop running, and just set there on its top screaming like a weedwhacker while he chased it around and around trying to stop it. Ever since then, it has set on his shelf as a piece of his childhood history, which he tells to anyone who will listen.
I grew up with these things. My Dad was a bad ass u control model airplane stunt flyer. He was a national champion in the 50's. He was also into tether cars from the 50's to the 80's, and raced very competitively in National competitions. You are right. They are almost completely hand made. My Dad would just get the rough aluminum cast car and mill it himself. The fuel tanks and many of the parts were hand made. Once he even made an engine. He was good friends with Dick McCoy, of McCoy engines.
I've got two tether cars from the 1930s. They were my dad's. One is a Dooling Bros. and the other is a Hiller that has never been run. The Hiller I believe is called a "Hornet" and was made by the same company that built full sized helicopters. I've even got the manual for the Hiller. The cars were run in roller skating rinks primarily where my dad grew up in Illinois. He had told me that the cars would have a pole that would protrude vertically from the car much like an antenna. This was connected to a switch that would turn the motor's ignition off. To get the car to stop you would stick a long pole out that would trip that "antenna" and the ignition would cut off, stopping the car. My two cars have pneumatic tires. I also have an engine, new in the box called a "Super Cyclone" which includes a spare cylinder head that, I believe boosted the compression on the engine for more power. I'm not positive, but I believe that the Cyclone engine could be used either in the Dooling car or with a prop for airplanes, with minor modification. I also have some 1930s and pre-war airplane engines, also. One is a Morton M-5, 5 cylinder radial with a 14" prop and an opposed 2 cylinder called an "Elf". There's also a "Denny-Mite" single cyl. airplane motor that was produced by an popular 1930s actor named Reginald Denny. They all use small spark plugs and not glow plugs. Mustie1, you've got some valuable and interesting cars and parts. Thanks for sharing.
Wow, Mustie - sweet find! I had an old, large (approx 17" long, 9" high, 7" wide) silver streamlined racing car w/closed cockpit, open in rear, made of balsa wood. It had been my former brother-in-law's car that I remember from the '50s. No motor, large Bonneville-looking wheels w/hard rubber tires, and two eyelets on the lower frame on the left side. Didn't have any use for it, didn't have a clue as to what it was worth, put it on eBay for a low price ($50) and said didn't know what it was. Didn't take long for buyers to let me know what it was and approximate age ('30s - '40s). Also received some web links about these tether cars, which were tremendously popular at one time - they were even raced on indoor slot tracks, much like the old electric slot car shops were in the '60s. I had no idea, and was completely shocked at what it sold for it over 5 years ago - over $1400.00. Folks, it's really worth looking these tether cars up on the 'net. Who knew????
I used to fly control line model planes with engines like these but I never got into the tether cars..my favorite engine was the Fox .35 with 65 foot control lines and running on a mixture of nitro and castor oil...what a lucky find for you.. congrats
At 1:40 it was said that these are 19 cc motors. Well they are not as they are .19 of a cubic inch . Their capacity is measured in cubic inches and that would be 3.11 cc. We used to refer to a 60 as 9.8cc were 60 was in fact .6 cubic inches. Hope that this helps.
My brother had one of the first style "real McCoy" cars in the very early fifties. We started it by turning a bit over and holding it against the tire while cranking the bike. The one he had was the only engine that I can remember having rings on the piston but I probably just don't remember very well. It would seem that any of the small engines would have some form of rings. The metal "wheelie" tab was not part of the car originally and I remember that the car developed a lot go gouges on the underside, between the rear wheels from the asphalt we were running on They were located right under the rear axel where the tires must have compressed enough to take up all the clearance which was about 1/8 inch. We didn't try to stop the car - just let it run out of gas. I think that the 19 displacement was .019 inches. According to the literature it would run at something nearing 100 MPH actual speed, not scale speed. All I can recall for sure was that it was a challenge to turn fast enough in the middle of the circle.
Nice! I flew line control planes with Enya glow-plug engines. Always returned home with a bag of wood splinters and torn doped fabric rags. Great times! Yes, the engines scream! The trick was to know someone who’s Mom was a nurse so you could get a syringe for feeding fuel straight into the cylinder, kinda like that bottle Mustie has.
Dan is right, these cars and the associated parts are worth a small fortune, you scored a big time find... that's antiques roadshow type stuff one or two of those engines might be worth a small fortune by itself. That's one of those once in a lifetime finds my friend!
The one you called Porky was a Rodzy Standard made by American Precision Engineering. It had a .09 engine. I saved up for a year to buy one as a kid. They also made a Rodzy Racer with a larger engine.
We raced theme on a tennis Court. And yes they were really fast. If you are interested in all this---let me know. By the way, we held on to them using a length of kite string. Where we raced them starting side by side rolling along in a circle. The track had to be swept clean so as not to flip end over end. You found someones entire kit. Now go have fun.
What a cool parts kit. Looks like an upgraded version of an erector set. I’ll bet Mustie could put that bigger engine together with all those parts in that kit.
Hi Mustie 1. You are right !!! I am an old fool of 83 that can go back to about 1947 when I first saw such a car, how wonderful that you have found them. Someone had a lot of cash to have had such great models, I have a book on Model Cars and I think some are in it. Like me, the book is old, I could never afford a car. Some were produced by 1066 Models in kit form..I bought a chassis wheels diff and some chassis fitings hoping to construct a mode MG, wasn't clever enough still have some parts somewhere. Thaks for the memories
What a sweet treat to see I was thinking of buying an older 40's .19 that is selling for 10$ and building a car by hand I have alot of aluminum blocks laying around just begging to be casted and machined.
The Motors remind me of the old Cox Airplanes that you would pilot in a circle with Guide Lines. They may be similar (starting wise) to the Nitro Methane RC cars like a friend of mine Raced in the early 70s. The Planes required a Battery Pack that would plug onto the Glow Plug and you would spin the prop to start it, then pull the battery wire off the motor. The Cars had Battery Packs in the car, and used a (external) High Speed Spinning Wheel to rotate the tires, or a Fly Wheel under the car till it fired up. My friend mounted a motor and wheel in a Foot Locker type Box, and would lower the car onto the wheel to start it.
A friend of mine had an old Cox tether with the .049........I had a p-51 cox plane with the same motor with the spring starter that hooked the prop.... the two tether lines controlled the rear elevator.Man that always made ya dizzy as hell.but was fun.
Very cool...I used to go to a tether car circuit back in the 70's...The engines burn up real fast because they become leaner the more they go around until they are shut off with a broom..or a Kaboom..!..lol
I remember seeing an ad in a model magazine in the late 1950's for a car like yours . The one aluminium coloured one, with the pointed front in Britain .
hey there .thanks for sharing brings back memories my dad ran this one in the 30-40s.i know how it is about tires going flat. I'm looking for a pair for mine. Mine tether car is a dooling F.
Wow that some really rare cars you just dont find a nice and valuable collection like that. Mabey 1 car but 5 awesome cool. I would have to say about $800 Mabey more on rarity. Thx for sharing
When I was a kid in the 60's I had a Dan Gurney Eagle Indy car that was a tether racer. I use to start it on the overturned wheel of my bicycle. Ultimately they were boring since it seemed to be a matter of how many circles the thing would do on a tank of gas..
Yes... they never put the decimal point on the cast crankcase body so my McCoy "Redhead" 19 is actually a .19 Cubic Inch displacement and my Vivell 35 is actually a .35 Cubic Inch displacement in the combustion chamber on my antique model airplane engines, which is the cubic area of the bore diameter and stroke length for the air/fuel mixture's effective volume for combustion.
every one of those motors ran on a gas/oil mix, NOT alcohol those are NOT glow plugs they are spark plugs they require a magneto or a coil and battery all of them used some kind of points ignition ( even the magneto ) they did not have any kind of solid state ignition, all of those motors are collectors items when complete and running they are worth a pretty penny to the proper person. the large engine thats dissembled needs a cylinder liner pressed into the block for one of your pistons to fit, the pistons do not run in the bare block. nos parts are still available for those motors however because of the scarcity they are a bit pricey. my friend you have a once in a life time find. if you are not going to play with them yourself i hope you find someone to treat you right when buying them from you. btw the fuel tanks were all made of tin or brass, and all soldered together because gasoline had a nasty habit of ruining the plastics of the day. .
Sizing-wise, I think they're like model aircraft engines. For example : a "19" would be 0.19 cubic inch, a "40" would be 0.40 cubic inch etc. In the UK, our early engines were 'diesels' (no spark) these were rated in cc's. Later, we had 'Glow-plug' engines. These had a tiny heater filament that would glow when attached to a low voltage battery (about 2v I think). Once started, you could disconnect the battery and the heat of combustion would keep it going. Even earlier, (20's and 30's ?) the spark ignition ones like you've got there were common. There should be a contact breaker driven off the crankshaft plus a coil and condenser set-up somewhere else. I think the modellers of the day used fairly large 12v lead-acid cells for starting and dry cells for operating once started.
The weird pistons are actually Schnurle type deflector pistons. The ramp causes the fuel air mixture to be looped (the Schnurle loop effect) into the top of the cylinder, pushing the exhaust gases out of the opposite exhaust port. Deflector piston opposed port 2 stroke engines produce around 30% less power than conventional 2 stroke engine of the same displacement. This type of 2 stroke engine produces only around 30% of the power output of a conventional transverse ported flat top piston 2 stroke engine because it is so inefficient. They appeared in the 1890's and the last motorcycle produced with a opposed ported deflector piston engine was a French 5.5 HP 125cc in 1958 (at a time when transverse ported 125cc motorcycles produced 10 or more HP). In 1944 Jawa secretly invented and experimented with transverse ported flat top pistoned 2 stroke motorcycle engines. right under the noses of the Nazis. In 1946 Jawa produced the 250-11 Perak, the world's first production transverse ported 2 stroke motorcycle, which could attain the then unheard of (for any 250cc) top speed of 75 MPH. All other post 1946 transverse ported 2 stroke engines, with flat topped pistons, are descended from this motorcycle.
My father used to have some kind of dealings with similar engines, for racing model airplanes. The older ones were all spark ignition. He told me about one super-tuned engine that ran 40000 rpm and gave 5 hp, made by Ball iirc. Not sure what the displacement was, but not at all large. Being 2-strokes and cranked by flipping the propeller, the engines would sometimes try to start backwards, which could take off a finger when the sharp trailing edge hit mere mortal flesh and bone.
I saw these run when I was a kid in a elementary school. The guy pounded a large nail into the asphalt to hold it in place and we stood by about 75 feet away. When h got it started and it ran in a circle they went insanely fast and it was scary loud.
These are beautiful, much faster than you probably expect... the "19" is a little over 3cc....I suspect these tether cars would be too unstable for free running!
Today I am mr very jealous! Those are a real delight. Dream about going to a flea market or garage sale and finding a box of treasure like these! Not an insignificant value there.
They are glo-plug motors. A six volt battery would be attached to get the plug hot then a spin of the motor would start it an run till the fuel ran out.
I know...Glow fuel which is Nitro methane and caster oil...I was into model planes most my life...Still have a lot of the old engines and planes...That ole timey car has a Cox engine in it...The one with the oval cylinder..
My old friend Matthew had a tether car when he was about 10 years old, it was a beautiful red racer with a .19 engine, and it ran like greased lightning... However, he didn't want to tether it, so one day he fired it up and turned it loose on the street in front of his house. The car did great for about 50 yards, then veered wildly to one side, spun, and hit the curb. By the time it stopped, it had slammed into the neighbors car, doing about 60 mph. It left a dent and a caused quite a racket, and Matthew got his backside whooped. This was around the Summer of 1968, and these cars were made of metal and were pretty heavy. It looked like their car was hit with a baseball bat. The funny part was that the tether car didn't stop running, and just set there on its top screaming like a weedwhacker while he chased it around and around trying to stop it. Ever since then, it has set on his shelf as a piece of his childhood history, which he tells to anyone who will listen.
I listened (read).
That’s a pretty cool story. I was also 10 in 1968 and never even heard of these things.
I was 18, and would have loved them! Great story, wish I’d been there…
I grew up with these things. My Dad was a bad ass u control model airplane stunt flyer. He was a national champion in the 50's. He was also into tether cars from the 50's to the 80's, and raced very competitively in National competitions.
You are right. They are almost completely hand made. My Dad would just get the rough aluminum cast car and mill it himself. The fuel tanks and many of the parts were hand made. Once he even made an engine. He was good friends with Dick McCoy, of McCoy engines.
Great history! Do you have his old cars?
I'm one of the guys drooling over all that cool cars hahahaha
I've got two tether cars from the 1930s. They were my dad's. One is a Dooling Bros. and the other is a Hiller that has never been run. The Hiller I believe is called a "Hornet" and was made by the same company that built full sized helicopters. I've even got the manual for the Hiller. The cars were run in roller skating rinks primarily where my dad grew up in Illinois. He had told me that the cars would have a pole that would protrude vertically from the car much like an antenna. This was connected to a switch that would turn the motor's ignition off. To get the car to stop you would stick a long pole out that would trip that "antenna" and the ignition would cut off, stopping the car. My two cars have pneumatic tires. I also have an engine, new in the box called a "Super Cyclone" which includes a spare cylinder head that, I believe boosted the compression on the engine for more power. I'm not positive, but I believe that the Cyclone engine could be used either in the Dooling car or with a prop for airplanes, with minor modification. I also have some 1930s and pre-war airplane engines, also. One is a Morton M-5, 5 cylinder radial with a 14" prop and an opposed 2 cylinder called an "Elf". There's also a "Denny-Mite" single cyl. airplane motor that was produced by an popular 1930s actor named Reginald Denny. They all use small spark plugs and not glow plugs.
Mustie1, you've got some valuable and interesting cars and parts. Thanks for sharing.
Not 19 CCs. That would be nearly the size of a weed whacker engine. American engines from the 1950's wouldn't have been metric.
.19 cu. in.
1,9 cc
No, 0.19 cu. in. or 3.1cc
Right - a 19cc ish weedeater piston is bigger than the jug
Wow, Mustie - sweet find! I had an old, large (approx 17" long, 9" high, 7" wide) silver streamlined racing car w/closed cockpit, open in rear, made of balsa wood. It had been my former brother-in-law's car that I remember from the '50s. No motor, large Bonneville-looking wheels w/hard rubber tires, and two eyelets on the lower frame on the left side. Didn't have any use for it, didn't have a clue as to what it was worth, put it on eBay for a low price ($50) and said didn't know what it was. Didn't take long for buyers to let me know what it was and approximate age ('30s - '40s). Also received some web links about these tether cars, which were tremendously popular at one time - they were even raced on indoor slot tracks, much like the old electric slot car shops were in the '60s. I had no idea, and was completely shocked at what it sold for it over 5 years ago - over $1400.00. Folks, it's really worth looking these tether cars up on the 'net. Who knew????
I used to fly control line model planes with engines like these but I never got into the tether cars..my favorite engine was the Fox .35 with 65 foot control lines and running on a mixture of nitro and castor oil...what a lucky find for you.. congrats
I am actually jealous that you find these thing at yard sales. How do you get so lucky and find these sales fella ??? Thanks, VF
Thanks again mustie1. I never even seen such a thing or heard of it before. Thank you for the history lesson. Those were way cool!
At 1:40 it was said that these are 19 cc motors. Well they are not as they are .19 of a cubic inch . Their capacity is measured in cubic inches and that would be 3.11 cc.
We used to refer to a 60 as 9.8cc were 60 was in fact .6 cubic inches. Hope that this helps.
If a box like this don't excite you you there is something wrong with you🤣🤣
My brother had one of the first style "real McCoy" cars in the very early fifties. We started it by turning a bit over and holding it against the tire while cranking the bike. The one he had was the only engine that I can remember having rings on the piston but I probably just don't remember very well. It would seem that any of the small engines would have some form of rings. The metal "wheelie" tab was not part of the car originally and I remember that the car developed a lot go gouges on the underside, between the rear wheels from the asphalt we were running on They were located right under the rear axel where the tires must have compressed enough to take up all the clearance which was about 1/8 inch. We didn't try to stop the car - just let it run out of gas. I think that the 19 displacement was .019 inches. According to the literature it would run at something nearing 100 MPH actual speed, not scale speed. All I can recall for sure was that it was a challenge to turn fast enough in the middle of the circle.
Nice! I flew line control planes with Enya glow-plug engines. Always returned home with a bag of wood splinters and torn doped fabric rags. Great times! Yes, the engines scream! The trick was to know someone who’s Mom was a nurse so you could get a syringe for feeding fuel straight into the cylinder, kinda like that bottle Mustie has.
We have one of these in our basement. The Real McCoy springs to mind. We used a bike wheel to start it when we tested it
The fuel tank was a bladder type, sort of like a balloon but a bit thicker that went in the front open area there. Very dope cars man!
Dan is right, these cars and the associated parts are worth a small fortune, you scored a big time find... that's antiques roadshow type stuff one or two of those engines might be worth a small fortune by itself. That's one of those once in a lifetime finds my friend!
I have one of the Cox Tether cars. No engine.
My late uncle won it in his youth as an outstanding paper carrier.
tether cars are still a big hobby in the UK. Run on a track at speeds up to 150mph.
very nice find.
10 cc class is doing around 320 kph
The one you called Porky was a Rodzy Standard made by American Precision Engineering. It had a .09 engine. I saved up for a year to buy one as a kid. They also made a Rodzy Racer with a larger engine.
We raced theme on a tennis Court. And yes they were really fast. If you are interested in all this---let me know. By the way, we held on to them using a length of kite string. Where we raced them starting side by side rolling along in a circle. The track had to be swept clean so as not to flip end over end. You found someones entire kit. Now go have fun.
What a cool parts kit. Looks like an upgraded version of an erector set. I’ll bet Mustie could put that bigger engine together with all those parts in that kit.
I don't know about these but Raddaddy echoed my "thoughts" about these cars.
I am not surprised they are of a mint worth.
Hi Mustie 1.
You are right !!! I am an old fool of 83 that can go back to about 1947 when I first saw such a car, how wonderful that you have found them. Someone had a lot of cash to have had such great models, I have a book on Model Cars and I think some are in it. Like me, the book is old, I could never afford a car. Some were produced by 1066 Models in kit form..I bought a chassis wheels diff and some chassis fitings hoping to construct a mode MG, wasn't clever enough still have some parts somewhere. Thaks for the memories
What a sweet treat to see I was thinking of buying an older 40's .19 that is selling for 10$ and building a car by hand I have alot of aluminum blocks laying around just begging to be casted and machined.
Congrats, even more great stuff! Collectors will buy it for much, much more money!
There are videos of these cars running. AWESOME!
Now I'm a drooler. Outstanding find there.
there like all over the place, as far as price, hope l can find someone local to apraise them, thanks for the offer for writting them up
some really cool stuff i had a black widow as a kid i wish still had it
The Motors remind me of the old Cox Airplanes that you would pilot in a circle with Guide Lines. They may be similar (starting wise) to the Nitro Methane RC cars like a friend of mine Raced in the early 70s. The Planes required a Battery Pack that would plug onto the Glow Plug and you would spin the prop to start it, then pull the battery wire off the motor. The Cars had Battery Packs in the car, and used a (external) High Speed Spinning Wheel to rotate the tires, or a Fly Wheel under the car till it fired up. My friend mounted a motor and wheel in a Foot Locker type Box, and would lower the car onto the wheel to start it.
I heard about cars like that from my friends dad 10+ years ago. Those were the days before Radio control cars came out. Awesome find
Cool stuff!! Love the tether cars! Gotta be more fun than a video game!! lol
Someone really enjoyed building and racing these cars.
Steve Stumbaugh agreed there was alot of blood sweat and tears put into making those cars and getting them to work.
Wow what a find , I am envious beyond belief
most used pressure fuel systems. they used a pen bladder for a fuel tank
.19 cu. inch McCoy engine. Also a .60 cu. inch McCoy redhead........those speed engines are quite valuable.
What an AWESOME Score!
I'd like to see a first start video on at least one of those, those are absolutely the coolest model race cars I've ever seen!
recently found your channel love the vids these cars are awesome I use to race modern rc monster trucks
Really nice find, I collect old toys, thanks for sharing, Id love to own them. :-)
Have never seen this before,would love to see how they run,thanks for the video.
I can see someone upgrading and putting remote control servo's in it and etc..cool old toys
Mike and Frank from American Pickers would go absolutely apeshit over these tether cars.
Those car are a great find,wish they were mine :)
A friend of mine had an old Cox tether with the .049........I had a p-51 cox plane with the same motor with the spring starter that hooked the prop.... the two tether lines controlled the rear elevator.Man that always made ya dizzy as hell.but was fun.
love to see you get them going .
Awesome find!
Way too cool. I knew a guy in Seattle who built these
Lucky DOG! Incredible find. How much did you pay. These are priceless to me.
Hi I made one for about 60 dollars 6 pieces of wood a cox 049 end a few nails it is fan powered
Very cool...I used to go to a tether car circuit back in the 70's...The engines burn up real fast because they become leaner the more they go around until they are shut off with a broom..or a Kaboom..!..lol
3:17 1946-1947 Borden Teardrop streamliner. Eric Zausner, of Potomac MD, is the definitive authority on these. I was honored to meet the man
Moped Army here :)
Beautiful and rare and handmade.
That first car looks like the Monopoly car! Very cool finds for sure.
My father had two string racers in his day .alot of fun .
I remember seeing an ad in a model magazine in the late 1950's for a car like yours . The one aluminium coloured one, with the pointed front in Britain .
hey there .thanks for sharing brings back memories my dad ran this one in the 30-40s.i know how it is about tires going flat. I'm looking for a pair for mine. Mine tether car is a dooling F.
They lasted this long because they are metal not plastic,I love those cars ,amazing find
Wow that some really rare cars you just dont find a nice and valuable collection like that. Mabey 1 car but 5 awesome cool. I would have to say about $800 Mabey more on rarity. Thx for sharing
l agree, a dealer bought them sight unseen
They used a broom to hit the kill arm...
When I was a kid in the 60's I had a Dan Gurney Eagle Indy car that was a tether racer. I use to start it on the overturned wheel of my bicycle. Ultimately they were boring since it seemed to be a matter of how many circles the thing would do on a tank of gas..
wow! I just watched one of these things do 197mph! and that was one of the small motors.
I just saw a teether car on TV that was worth like 4 grand might wanna get then looked at for value. Thanks Dan
Yes... they never put the decimal point on the cast crankcase body so my McCoy "Redhead" 19 is actually a .19 Cubic Inch displacement and my Vivell 35 is actually a .35 Cubic Inch displacement in the combustion chamber on my antique model airplane engines, which is the cubic area of the bore diameter and stroke length for the air/fuel mixture's effective volume for combustion.
Wow, so many parts!
The McCoy and the FOX-35 was two of the best engines.
Really Really Cool!
love the fuel Cell ,all spot welded lol they got to rare and worth some serious bucks .
every one of those motors ran on a gas/oil mix, NOT alcohol those are NOT glow plugs they are spark plugs they require a magneto or a coil and battery all of them used some kind of points ignition ( even the magneto ) they did not have any kind of solid state ignition, all of those motors are collectors items when complete and running they are worth a pretty penny to the proper person.
the large engine thats dissembled needs a cylinder liner pressed into the block for one of your pistons to fit, the pistons do not run in the bare block. nos parts are still available for those motors however because of the scarcity they are a bit pricey.
my friend you have a once in a life time find. if you are not going to play with them yourself i hope you find someone to treat you right when buying them from you.
btw the fuel tanks were all made of tin or brass, and all soldered together because gasoline had a nasty habit of ruining the plastics of the day.
.
nice find and i would hang on to them pity about the piston but still all collectable good find
Very cool acquisition
Sizing-wise, I think they're like model aircraft engines. For example : a "19" would be 0.19 cubic inch, a "40" would be 0.40 cubic inch etc. In the UK, our early engines were 'diesels' (no spark) these were rated in cc's. Later, we had 'Glow-plug' engines. These had a tiny heater filament that would glow when attached to a low voltage battery (about 2v I think). Once started, you could disconnect the battery and the heat of combustion would keep it going. Even earlier, (20's and 30's ?) the spark ignition ones like you've got there were common. There should be a contact breaker driven off the crankshaft plus a coil and condenser set-up somewhere else. I think the modellers of the day used fairly large 12v lead-acid cells for starting and dry cells for operating once started.
thanks, now l need a track
loved the videos and the comments
I played with slot cars and tether planes. Planes had glow plugs and 6v lantern battery to start it. Reciprocal spring.
The weird pistons are actually Schnurle type deflector pistons. The ramp causes the fuel air mixture to be looped (the Schnurle loop effect) into the top of the cylinder, pushing the exhaust gases out of the opposite exhaust port. Deflector piston opposed port 2 stroke engines produce around 30% less power than conventional 2 stroke engine of the same displacement. This type of 2 stroke engine produces only around 30% of the power output of a conventional transverse ported flat top piston 2 stroke engine because it is so inefficient. They appeared in the 1890's and the last motorcycle produced with a opposed ported deflector piston engine was a French 5.5 HP 125cc in 1958 (at a time when transverse ported 125cc motorcycles produced 10 or more HP).
In 1944 Jawa secretly invented and experimented with transverse ported flat top pistoned 2 stroke motorcycle engines. right under the noses of the Nazis. In 1946 Jawa produced the 250-11 Perak, the world's first production transverse ported 2 stroke motorcycle, which could attain the then unheard of (for any 250cc) top speed of 75 MPH. All other post 1946 transverse ported 2 stroke engines, with flat topped pistons, are descended from this motorcycle.
You got gold mine in cars bro
Joe
Navy vet
I think it would be fun to build one from scratch
I did it’s fairly easy
worth about 2000 each, no spark plug, that's a glow plug, 1.5 volts heats it up, push it to start, then look out!!
I really liked the look of those cars, and found a video on here with a chap who's has build a track and still races them 200mph was recorded from one
That man is smiling down because his "toys" are in good hands.
they were sold as a package about a month ago,
My father used to have some kind of dealings with similar engines, for racing model airplanes. The older ones were all spark ignition. He told me about one super-tuned engine that ran 40000 rpm and gave 5 hp, made by Ball iirc. Not sure what the displacement was, but not at all large. Being 2-strokes and cranked by flipping the propeller, the engines would sometimes try to start backwards, which could take off a finger when the sharp trailing edge hit mere mortal flesh and bone.
They used ink pen bladders to pressure feed the motors. It was a unit that you charged and then installed.
I saw these run when I was a kid in a elementary school. The guy pounded a large nail into the asphalt to hold it in place and we stood by about 75 feet away. When h got it started and it ran in a circle they went insanely fast and it was scary loud.
that is neat stuff.
i always was told they stored them with the fuel tanks out of them
These are beautiful, much faster than you probably expect... the "19" is a little over 3cc....I suspect these tether cars would be too unstable for free running!
thanks for the info
"19" = 0.19 cubic inch which is about 3.2cc as you note.
cool old lil car
Today I am mr very jealous! Those are a real delight. Dream about going to a flea market or garage sale and finding a box of treasure like these! Not an insignificant value there.
nice collection
Wicked cool I'm jealous
now thats some cool stuff i bet that was alot back then
They are glo-plug motors. A six volt battery would be attached to get the plug hot then a spin of the motor would start it an run till the fuel ran out.
Somebody was pretty serious about racing these.
Looks good
Not 19cc's, that stood for .19c.i.,
one nineteenth of a cubic inch.
Some of those tether cars today go over 200m.p.h.
thanks, that would make sence,,do you know what was used for fuel
I know...Glow fuel which is Nitro methane and caster oil...I was into model planes most my life...Still have a lot of the old engines and planes...That ole timey car has a Cox engine in it...The one with the oval cylinder..
Good stuff..is worth a couple of bucks too.