The future we once dreamed of is here! - Bilge

E exotica59 Member Joined: Oct 17, 2004 Posts: 483	E exotica59 Posted posted on Wed, Nov 16, 2005 6:58 AM I have been looking through all our old family photos to try and find a picture of this neat thing that the neighbor guy tried to sell for about a year.... I grew up in what used to be the edge of the suburbs. On our Road ( which was gravel with a one lane bridge over the creek) there was about 10 homes, all with around 5 acres of land around each one. Our next door neighbor and his brother had owned one of the local new car dealerships in town ( sold Ramblers). Some thing had gone way wrong and they went belly up. The neighbor was forced to take up used car sales, but he was always looking for the one new thing that would put him back on top in money and respectability. One day he came over to our house to offer us a "deal". If we would agree to let him use our open space land for demonstrations of his newest "vehicle" he'd let us in on the ground floor of something fabulous. Well, we really liked this crazy guy, so my folks told him it was OK to use the property and thanks, but no thanks to the get rich quick part. I can still remember the day the AIRCYCLES arrived. a truck with a huge car carrying rack brought 7 or 8 of them to the neighbors house. I must have been somewhere in the 8 to 10 yrs old range at the time, and had never seen anything like these things! Red, blue and gray fiberglass bodies with huge rubber bumpers running around the outside edge, with a giant fan in the back. They were great fun! Traveled over water, sand mud, snow, and land. No brakes, and hard to handle steering. The neighbor had 7 kids and then there was my brother and I. What fun we had hovering around the Field, crashing into each other like bumper cars! The neighbor got a huge write up in the local paper explaining the revolutionary new devices, along with a invite for the entire town to come out to the Fox river and watch a professional duo of aircyclist run these machines through there paces. We were all so excited the day of the big event. The show took place in a section of water between to dams. Everyone cheered as the pair of aircycles raced from the parking lot onto the water and then raced around and around. Then suddenly one of the cycles died out the driver.The driver tried and tried to get the engine to fire up again as he floated closer and closer to the dam. Ladies in the crowd were gasping and looking away, sure that they man was going over the dam. Then, just in the nick of time, the cycle came back to life and he drove off just before certain death. The crowd cheered, the color came back into the neighbors face and looked forward to the huge sales he would make.... He pictured this as a new type of recreational vehicle. Well, the price must have been either too high or our small town just couldn't get behind the idea of the crazy looking contraptions. They were rather large at 12 ft. and only held one person or two kids. Little dangerous for kids, (still have a scare on my forehead from hitting the steering wheel in a head on crash with a tree.) Sad part is, I think he sold two or three the first day.He quickly ordered 6 more cycles, only to never sell another one. This really put the poor guy into a deep funk that he never really came out of. My parents too had had enough of cars full of people using our yard as a parking lot as they took a test drive in the cycles, only to walk away from a purchase.We also worried about someone getting seriously hurt and suing us. The man must have actually bought these cycles as he was unable to return them and unable to sell them. He ended up renting property on a plot of land and sold rides for 5 bucks for a half an hour. The cycles were not all the sturdy and they eventually all turned to juke, to be carted off to the local dump. I had forgotten about these crazy things till just the other day when driving down the road I noticed a lean to shed off of an old weathered barn. You can clearly see the last raiment's of the the old aircycle. :)

I have been looking through all our old family photos to try and find a picture of this neat thing that the neighbor guy tried to sell for about a year....
I grew up in what used to be the edge of the suburbs. On our Road ( which was gravel with a one lane bridge over the creek) there was about 10 homes, all with around 5 acres of land around each one.
Our next door neighbor and his brother had owned one of the local new car dealerships in town ( sold Ramblers). Some thing had gone way wrong and they went belly up. The neighbor was forced to take up used car sales, but he was always looking for the one new thing that would put him back on top in money and respectability.
One day he came over to our house to offer us a "deal". If we would agree to let him use our open space land for demonstrations of his newest "vehicle" he'd let us in on the ground floor of something fabulous. Well, we really liked this crazy guy, so my folks told him it was OK to use the property and thanks, but no thanks to the get rich quick part.
I can still remember the day the AIRCYCLES arrived. a truck with a huge car carrying rack brought 7 or 8 of them to the neighbors house. I must have been somewhere in the 8 to 10 yrs old range at the time, and had never seen anything like these things!
Red, blue and gray fiberglass bodies with huge rubber bumpers running around the outside edge, with a giant fan in the back. They were great fun! Traveled over water, sand mud, snow, and land. No brakes, and hard to handle steering. The neighbor had 7 kids and then there was my brother and I. What fun we had hovering around the Field, crashing into each other like bumper cars!
The neighbor got a huge write up in the local paper explaining the revolutionary new devices, along with a invite for the entire town to come out to the Fox river and watch a professional duo of aircyclist run these machines through there paces.
We were all so excited the day of the big event. The show took place in a section of water between to dams. Everyone cheered as the pair of aircycles raced from the parking lot onto the water and then raced around and around. Then suddenly one of the cycles died out the driver.The driver tried and tried to get the engine to fire up again as he floated closer and closer to the dam. Ladies in the crowd were gasping and looking away, sure that they man was going over the dam. Then, just in the nick of time, the cycle came back to life and he drove off just before certain death.
The crowd cheered, the color came back into the neighbors face and looked forward to the huge sales he would make.... He pictured this as a new type of recreational vehicle.
Well, the price must have been either too high or our small town just couldn't get behind the idea of the crazy looking contraptions. They were rather large at 12 ft. and only held one person or two kids. Little dangerous for kids, (still have a scare on my forehead from hitting the steering wheel in a head on crash with a tree.)
Sad part is, I think he sold two or three the first day.He quickly ordered 6 more cycles, only to never sell another one. This really put the poor guy into a deep funk that he never really came out of. My parents too had had enough of cars full of people using our yard as a parking lot as they took a test drive in the cycles, only to walk away from a purchase.We also worried about someone getting seriously hurt and suing us.
The man must have actually bought these cycles as he was unable to return them and unable to sell them. He ended up renting property on a plot of land and sold rides for 5 bucks for a half an hour. The cycles were not all the sturdy and they eventually all turned to juke, to be carted off to the local dump.
I had forgotten about these crazy things till just the other day when driving down the road I noticed a lean to shed off of an old weathered barn. You can clearly see the last raiment's of the the old aircycle. :)

Post #198371 by exotica59 on Wed, Nov 16, 2005 6:58 AM