Detroit steel and the V8 motor go hand in hand. Now, the eight-cylinder engine is falling out of popularity with carmakers striving for better economy and lower emissions, this only drums up more nostalgia in some. But the first V8-powered motor vehicle built in Detroit wasn’t a car at all it was more like a motorcycle. Well, not exactly. It was the bizarre vehicle pictured – the Scripps-Booth Bi-Autogo.
Built in 1913 by media boss James Scripps-Booth, the vehicle weighed a massive 1,450 kg. It rode on 37-inch wooden wagon wheels, which were backed up by training wheels that lowered out of the bodywork to stabilise the odd vehicle at low speeds. Steering was performed with a wheel like a car, incorporating the first steering-wheel-mounted horn button, accompanied in the cockpit by the first folding arm-rest and sitting between the first hidden door hinges on a motor vehicle.
The copper-piped V8 displaced a massive 6.3 litres, but only produced 45 horsepower. Good for the time, but only one was ever built, and it belongs to the permanent collection of the Detroit Historical Museum in the states.
The Scripps-Booth Bi-Autogo has rather sadly come to attention this week for its inclusion in Time magazine’s 50 Worst Cars of All Time.
Click here to see what other cars made the unfortunate list.
