Nice Try, Pal

NICE TRY, PAL

JERRY SMITH

PLASTIC RUBBER

Although this ad from the July 1962 issue says Plastic Rubber can be used for making gaskets, insulating electrical connections and rebuilding worn handgrips, it's interesting to note that the rider in the photo is applying it to a tire. It's a little-known fact that Plastic Rubber was originally developed for 24-hour roadracing, and was available, in Touring, Street and Sport compounds. Only its slow drying time kept it from revolutionizing long-distance racing.

GO-MATIC

The Go-Matic, advertised in the Feb1965 issue, was a certified ire for the home mechanic, had to try to keep three separate chains-all wearing-out at three different rates on three different-size -in adjustment at the same Chain-lube manufacturers though,

If necessity truly is the mother of invention, then list these products—taken from the past pages of CYCLE WORLD—as unwanted orphans

BUCO HELMET-HAT

Helmet styles come and helmet styles go. Here’s one that did both almost simultaneously. “If you don’t wear a helmet, play it safe. Wear a Buco Helmet-Hat,” preached this ad from the December 1965 issue. Whatever your reason might have been for not wearing a helmet in those days, it’s debatable whether you would have chosen instead to ride around town looking like Pee-Wee Herman’s next of kin. Perhaps the Buco Helmet-Hat missed its calling. It might have proven to be the ultimate weapon in the fight against mandatory helmet legislation by inducing paralyzing fits of laughter among other motorcycle riders, causing them to lose control of their bikes and therby proving conclusively that helmets are dangerous.

MARUSHO

Sometimes mistaken for the sound that precedes "Gesundheit,'~ the Marusho, made in Japan in the early I 960s, was an unabashed copy of the BMW R50, as this March 1965 ad shows. Designed to seize the imagi nation of the growing.. American mo torcycling public, the Marusho in stead seized pistons. Lots of pistons. Two at a time. By the time the prob lem was traced to faulty spark ad vancers, the name Marusho was just a footnote in the history of the motor-cycle industry.

HELMIRROR

The man in this ad from the January 1966 issue is looking at himself in the mirror and wondering if he really wants to ride around with a hooked, foot-long piece of steel attached to his helmet. His answer was the same as that of most of the riders who saw this ad. Actually, every good idea has to have a beginning, and the Helmirror was the forerunner of a much more successful variation on the helmet-mounted-mirror theme. Visor-Vu.

CYCLE SNO-GO

We’ll leave you to ponder whether or not it’s a coincidence that Johnson Motors was a distributor of both the Sno-Go and Triumph motorcycles, and that the bike attached to the SnoGo in this ad from the February 1966 issue is a Triumph Tiger Cub. Some say the Sno-Go was a crafty ruse on

JoMoVs part to cleanse the warehouses of unsold Tiger Cubs. Under normal circumstances, the Cub was slow, leaked oil and overheated with near-legendary frequency. But when bolted to a Sno-Go, the Cub’s overheating problems disappeared completely. and its service life was extended indefinitely simply because a Cub wouldn’t start anyplace where it was cold enough to snow.

NAUGAHYDE LEATHER

Wearing the skin of a dead cow is, as we all know, a pretty good way to protect yourself from abrasion during a get-off. But substituting the skin of a dead La-Z-Boy recliner is about as practical as warding off buckshot with a doubled-over Kleenex. The biggest tip-off to the quality of the Naugahyde pants and jackets advertised in the February 1966 issue was their price: no item over $19.95. To paraphrase a famous helmet ad, if you have a $20 body, go racing dressed like the front seat of a Volkswagen.

TURBO-VISOR

The Turbo-Visor, advertised in the May 1967 issue, featured molded, spiral vanes that caused it to spin rapidly at speed and thus fling off raindrops. The Turbo-Visor’s maintenance-intensive center bearing proved its Achilles’ heel, however, as sudden seizures would instantly stop the rapidly whirling shield and snap a rider’s head halfway through his shoulder in a fraction of a second.

AMERICAN EAGLE

In the finest American melting-pot tradition, there wasn't a single native American motorcycle in the entire American Eagle lineup of the late 1960s. Rather, the company bought Kawasakis, Laverdas, Benellis and a few other obscure bikes and dressed them up in swoopy, fiberglass bodywork. While the component brands of the American Eagle line eventually prospered, the Eagle soared practically unnoticed into retirement.

BULLET-PROOF SHIELD

Here’s a nifty accessory from the August 1973 issue that was considerably before its time. This bulletproof faceshield might be just the ticket today in Southern California, where motorists have recently stopped using their car horns to alert fellow mo-

torists of vehicular gaffes, relying instead on handy, portable, attentiongetting semi-automatic weapons. Some upgrading of the product would be necessary to compensate for recent advances in small-arms technology, however, as the design advertised would only stop 12-gauge shotgun pellets fired from 25 feet. Nowadays, that won’t even get you as far as the Stop'n’Shop during rush hour.