The purpose was to fill a gap in the market between the motorcycle and the car; placing the engine of the first into a construct used by the second. It was a budget experience that bloomed … for a while.

IT was an interesting concept, a vehicle that bridged the gap between the automobile and the motorcycle.

 For a time during the early to mid-teens, it was an international fad that launched hundreds of manufacturing endeavours.

 And then in an instant the entire movement became less than an historical footnote. Yet in a way it was a glimpse of the future, the post WWII years when microcars would enjoy popularity, especially in Europe.

As understood at the time, the term cyclecar was in reference to a vehicle with a single cylinder or V-twin engine. They were often air cooled, carried one or two people, had open air light weight bodies, and had two or three wheels. They were born of taxation, especially in Europe, that provided a sizable discount for registration and license of cars with engines under a certain displacement.

 The first cycle cars appeared in 1910. By 1912 they were popular enough to justify Temple Press’s investment in a new magazine, The Cyclecar, on the 27th of November. Also, in that year the Cyclecar Club, forerunner of the British Automobile Racing Club was established.

 But truly indicative of the diminutive car’s popularity are the explosion in manufacturers. As an example, in 1911 the number of cyclecar manufacturers was less than a dozen in Britain and in France. By 1914, there were over 100 manufacturers in each country, as well as others in Germany, Austria, and other European countries, and in the United States.

 Even though the cyclecar was a niche market of the burgeoning automobile industry, especially in the United States where the consumer was already beginning to show affection for larger vehicles, more than one automotive pioneer invested in the idea.

 Benjamin Briscoe had been involved with the auto industry almost from the beginning. As a Detroit sheet metal manufacturer, he had supplied materials for body construction to Ransom Olds, Henry Ford and a multitude of automotive pioneers. He was the initial money man behind David Buick and had partnered with Jonathan Maxwell to create Maxwell-Briscoe. After an ill-planned venture to create a General Motors styled company that led to the collapse of Maxwell-Briscoe, he turned his attentions to European automobile companies. This led to Briscoe’s role in the cyclecar fad.

On his return to the United States, Briscoe purchased the manufacturing facilities of the defunct Standard Electric Car Company in Jackson, Michigan. After acquiring investors, he launched the Argo Motor Company in early 1914 to manufacture an American version of the Ajax, a car Briscoe and his brother had produced in France. Even in 1914, the customer could not expect much of a car for a mere $295, but the Argo was a surprise.  

Essentially this was a luxury version of the diminutive cyclecar. It was a 12-horsepower two-passenger roadster with a four-cylinder water cooled engine, shaft drive, sliding gear transmission that had 44-inch tread and weighed a mere 750-pounds.

For, Briscoe it proved to be a short-lived endeavour. In 1916 he radically transformed the Argo into a more traditional car, and then sold the company to Mansell Hackett. Hackett had built a profitable business buying and liquidating bankrupt automobile manufacturing companies. He continued producing the Argo for two more years alongside the Hackett, a car built from a hodgepodge of parts.

Without a doubt the most intriguing manifestations of the cyclecar in the United States manifested from the fertile imagination of James Scripps-Booth. His first vehicle debuted in 1912. A feature article about the car appeared in The Automobile under a headline that read, “Detroit Man Designs Strange Vehicle.”

The headline was an understatement as the BiAutogo was unlike any vehicle built before or since. It was a two-wheeled, two passenger vehicle with two stabilizing wheels like a bicycles training wheels that could be raised or lowered with a lever in the drivers cockpit.

It was powered by a 45-horsepower V8 engine, the first to be manufactured in Detroit. It had a compressed air starter and four speed transmission. The chain drive enclosure was incorporated into the body. But what people found most striking was the bright red paint and a cooling system that consisted of 450-feet of copper tubing that flowed from the hood and along both sides. Scripps-Booth spent $25,000 building the prototype, and then decided not to manufacture the oddity.

This was not the case with the Rocket, a tandem seat cyclecar. Power was produced through an air cooled Spacke manufactured vee-twin. The car had a wheelbase of 100 inches, and tread 36 inches. It was belt driven with a two-speed transmission and sold for $395. Four hundred cars were produced before the fad began to pass on the US side of the Atlantic. And so, Scripps-Booth turned his attention to the manufacture of a more conventional automobile, at least in appearance.

By 1920 the cyclecar craze was on the fast track to becoming an historic footnote. Today it is a nearly forgotten chapter. And the Argo and the Rocket, the National and Nebraska, Daisy and Fifty-Fifty cyclecars that have survived into the 21st century are revered and treasured. They are tangible links to a brief time in automobile manufacturing history when smaller was better.

Written by Jim Hinckley of jimhinckleysamerica.com