Hemmings Motor News Blog

I have never seen a "buckboard" just like the one in your photo. It looks like the fore-runner to the modern go-cart. When we were kids we built small motor-less push type carts much like tho one in your photo. The main requirement was a big hill to run the things down. I was home visiting my parents a few years back and all the local people were into building and racing lawn mowers. I got a chance to go to one of the races and it was very fun. they had a small oval dirt track and had tricked out those lawn mowers to really move. I could see myself building and racing one of those pretty easily.

pipewelder

Good to hear from you, pipewelder. You might be interested in this story about the 1960 McDonough Buckboard, too.

Good informative site thanks Moose for sharing it. Now I know a little about these guys. I was raised in south Alabama in a family that had little or no money for such things so this is probably why I have never saw one. Around my house if you wanted something you had to figure out how to build it cheap or do without. We had a very steep hill on the dirt road I grew up on that we called "thrill hill" it was fun to coast down that baby on one of our carts but probably not real safe.

piewelder

Hi, this is Shorty. That's my go kart. Most of the stuff on the Micro car web site is write. But some isn't. One thing is that they didn't have headlights. I have a copy of the original build sheet and on the cover it has a picture of the Buckboard with headlights. Also that one doe's not have fenders. I found my fenders in another part of the garage, 1 of them is crumpled up pretty bad, the others are in better shape but not great. I have a friend that doe's auto body work repairing them for me.

Shorty

Hi, Shorty again. I just read the Micro car spec. sheet again.

The steering is gear driven, not cable.

The gearbox is forward neutral, and reverse.

Horsepower was what you put on it, it was sold as a kit.

I've emailed them 5 or 6 times just to talk with no response?

Here's another link to my 1960 McDonough Buckboard. - Later, Shorty

http://p068.ezboard.com/f1960mcdonoughbuckboardfrm1.showMessage?topicID=1.topic

Forgot something else! They didn't come with "white wall tires", looking at the pictures in the build kit. - Shorty

Thanks for joining the discussion, Shorty. And welcome to CR4! I appreciate the time you've taken to set the story straight. We'd love to have you join us here, and encourage you to register with CR4.

Registration is free and easy, and provides benefits such as automatic notifications whenever someone posts a comment to a story that you're following. To register, just click the "Register" link on the right-hand side of the red bar near the top of the page. And if you have any questions, just give me a shout.

- Moose

The "McDonough Buckboard" was not actually sold as a kit. It was manufactured and built by the McDonough Power Equipment Company in McDonough, GA., in the late 50's and early 60's. McDonough Power would later become "Snapper" manufacturing, home of the world famous Snapper Lawn Mowers.

In the late 50's when McDonough Power was just getting started, they had virtually no sales in the late fall & winter, so their lead Engineer, Mr. Harold Jackson, designed & built the first Buckboard, using the engine and drive train, including the two handles for forward & reverse, from their "Snapping Turtle" self propelled lawn mower. They sold for $275.00. Later, he also designed and the company built a 1/2 scale "Tin Lizzie", using the same front end assembly, drive train, and wheels. Snapper sold the plans to Sharp Mini Car in Kansas, who still sells the Tin Lizzie. Lots of us here in McDonough still own one or both.