Three-wheel car, built 70 yrs ago by 17-year-old

Posted by Cory Doctorow, October 17, 2006 7:17 PM |
Jay Leno tells the story of a three-wheeled car, built 70 years ago by a 17-year-old amateur mechanic. Leno now owns the car, and has painstakingly refurbished it.

He recalled that he asked his father for a car as he was about to graduate from high school in the early 1930s. But his dad replied that if he wanted a car, he should build one. So, 17-year-old Bob scrounged parts and made his own car. It was a little three-wheeled coupe powered by a 77.2-cu.-in. four-cylinder 1931 Indian motorcycle engine. Bob called it Philbert the Puddle Jumper. He and his brother, Edward, made headlines in local newspapers in the Northwest when they drove it on a 6000-plus-mile jaunt. He told me that he eventually racked up 150,000 miles on it.
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