80 years ago…

New York night watchman designed the Icycle

Readers of The MotorCycle in February 1932 were invited to meet the Icycle designed by a night watchman in a New York skyscraper.

The designer was not named anywhere in the newspiece but it was known that he had been on with this project for 12 years and built 20 models to test various theories before coming up with this final version.

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It looks to be an interesting machine built around a wheel with a motor in it – which is a familiar concept for autocyclists – but with a spiked tyre for grip. We don’t think it went into production… do you know different?

Other snippets in the news that month were the introduction of three letter number plates instead of the previous two letters. This, it was felt, would give infinite possibilities for registrations.

Finally a 75-year-old enthusiast was apparently regularly clocking up distances of 200 miles a day during continental tours.

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