The history of technological development knows many good ideas, which, having everything for commercial success, did not achieve it. The Eveready Autoped is one such device - it was the world's first scooter manufactured in New York from 1915 to 1921. For just $ 100, he was able to move at a speed of 40 km / h, while consuming 1.9 liters of gasoline per 100 km.
Eveready Autoped is the grandfather of all scooters. Interestingly, much of Autoped's marketing was focused on women and for women, just like Vespa or Honda did - women were the focus of advertising for Italian scooters in the 1960s, and later Japanese scooters.
The design behind Autoped is both reliable and innovative. The proof is Arthur Hugo Cecil Gibson's patent for Autoped, which can be seen online today. Everything was simple: the engine, with a volume of one hundred and fifty-five cc, was air-cooled and located above the front wheel.
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The Autoped was equipped with headlights and a toolbox. To move, the driver had to stand on the platform and operate this wonderful device with the throttle and steering wheel. The clutch was "aligned" with the steering column - "forward" to compress the clutch to drive and "backward" to brake. One of the key features of the Autoped was its folding ability: the steering column tilted towards the platform.
Autoped received the greatest recognition from postmen (there are even stamps with the image of a postman on a scooter and a lot of photographs), and … street bandits, running away from the slow-moving police on a nimble and fast mechanism.
In Europe, by the way, Autoped gained more recognition, and was produced by the giant German company Krupp from 1919 to 1922 under license.