Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[clan chieftain]

No not the ones up your nose Some called them carts. A plank of wood with big pram wheels at the back and wee ones at the front. You could steer them with your feet or with a bit of rope. They were great fun. Me and my pals we all had one and used to race each other. The ones with the big Churchill pram wheels on the back were the fastest. I always got into bother for using my shoes as a brake The home made dragsters. Happy days. You never see them now.
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The Clan Chieftain

[Penguin45]

They were called "guiders" in Edinburgh, where I grew up. The one Dad and I made had 28" rear wheels and 24" fronts and had a proper nose down 70's dragster look to it.

Many years later, here's the one I made for my kids.



Couldn't find big wheels for love nor money.



Twin 1 driving.



Twin 2 driving. Idiotic grins says it all really!

In the way of kids, they did eventually leave it out in the garden and it disappeared.

P45.
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'67 Wolseley MkI 18/85, '70 Austin MkII 1800 The Landcrab Forum.

[Penguin45]

Oh - in the raw before they painted it.



P45.
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'67 Wolseley MkI 18/85, '70 Austin MkII 1800 The Landcrab Forum.

[peter scott]

Yes, I made myself an (Edinburgh) guider with a tea chest as the body. It was pretty hopeless as I didn't have big enough wheels.

Peter
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http://www.nostalgiatech.co.uk
1939 SS Jaguar 2 1/2 litre saloon

[Riley Blue]

My Dad made me something very similar back in the '50s when we lived in Maplethorpe and it still had a railway station. Along with my chums who also had them, we made some extra pocket money by carrying holiday makers' luggage from the station to their B&B.
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David

1963 Riley 1.5
1965 Riley 1.5

[peppiB]

Used to have great fun making and racing these in the 50's. We raced down a hill, until posh houses were built down 1 side and our activities were frowned upon by the residents.

I still have a scar on my left knee where I inserted a chisel (by accident - as kids we didn't think of using a vice to hold the wood, it was just clamped between our knees) Even had lights on one of them - powered by a battery box from a Triang train set

[clan chieftain]

Top of the range Penguin45...........class
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The Clan Chieftain

[bob2]

Hmm, giving me ideas, I have some old pram wheels and was wondering were to use them!!
Will build one for my girls!!!

[roverdriver]

Called a Billy Cart here in our part of Oz. Built mine when I was about 8 years old. Main timber came from a dismantled bed frame. We lived about half a mile, down a track from the main road- all down hill. I'd drag it to the main road on the way to school, where it was parked in the shrubbery under half of a 44 gallon drum for the day. Homecoming was swift and delightful.
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Dane- roverdriver but not a Viking.

[47Jag]

I've made a few bogies in my day and this where I have to disagree! A bogie with big wheels couldn't corner worth a da*n. All style They just couldn't take the lateral loads. I too had the shoes with the 45 degree chamfer on the heels. I had a tax disk on mine (from a Rover as I recall) with a number plate to match. Happy days

Art

[minormatt]

I thought you were going to be talking about a type of bogies that I used to play with regularly!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogie

[minormatt]

I thought you were going to be talking about a type of bogies that I used to play with regularly!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogie

[Peter_L]

Brought up in post war Barnsley, building trolleys was a fascinating pastime because tools and suitable parts were in very short supply.

Pram wheels were scarcer than hen's teeth, as was the square section axle, with turned ends. Nails and screws would be rescued from whatever we could find, after all one screw out of a door hinge is hardly going to cause the house to fall down.

Drilling holes was quite the challenge, a red hot poker would suffice for the larger holes in wood, but putting a 1/4 inch hole with a hand drill through a piece of 1/2 steel would provide entertainment from dawn until dusk.

If one's Dad, Uncle, or good neighbour was employed in certain industries and worked shifts, then anything was possible.

Riding them was great fun, but for me the pleasure was in the making. One soon learnt that attractive as it may seem, old bed frame angle iron is only any use as currency to get some wheels from the Rag and Bone man.

If only we had had a "Trolley App"

[clan chieftain]

When we got fed up with the bogies we used to sit on old tin trays and slide down the coal bing and in the winter the sledges came out. Great days the 50s. We never get enough snow to lie long enough for kids to sledge.
According to the "long range weather forecast" this has to be the worst winter since 1963
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The Clan Chieftain

[lowdrag]

Strange how the name changes from region to region. It's like a bread roll is a bap is a cob and so on. In Portsmouth they were soap boxes, and I well remember building one with a friend out of wood found in the shed. Lovely wood it was too, but we got hell when his Dad found out we had cut up the top of a dining table stored there. Anyone remember the Festival of peed races which were abandoned a few years back? Those were expensive high-tech carts with teams from MacLaren, Williams and so on.