I'll try to cover all of the questions asked in one response...
I am located in Texas, so I'm a fair distance away from the midwest where the vintage motorbike and scooter world seems to be centered. Texas isn't a bad place to be though and is an excellent place to be in Cushman scooters are your thing (don't have any of those) as they seems to be almost everywhere.
As for the Vintage Motor Bike Club, my intention is not to come here to bad-mouth them, though looking at my last couple of posts may make it seem like that. The club "is what it is" and one can take it or leave it, as is. I've been a member for 16 years and in fact I'm still a member despite being disappointed and in disagreement with various aspects of the organization. I don't really know why I continue because I don't really get that much out of the magazine and my present location and work life (far from retired) makes getting to Portland unlikely for the foreseeable future, but I'm still a member...
Gramps: Good to see you here. I've spent quite a bit of time browsing your site over the years. Some of the Doodle Bug content is stuff that I sent in and some of it stuff others have sent in of photos of my scooters or items in my collection. In addition to Doodle Bug stuff, I've sent in a fair bit of the Forall Scooter stuff (now in your minibike category).
Mike Sal: your question about what makes a Doodle Bug unique is a hard question to answer, but I'll try to be concise. It's hard...when you're passionate about something you can just about write a book about it.
-As far as I can tell, these were the first "catalog" and "department store" scooters ever offered. They were available 1946-1948 and were sold through Gambles, Western Auto, Macleods (Canadian arm of Gambles), and wholesaler Wheel Goods. They pre-dated the Sears Allstate line by several years and offerings from Montgomery Ward. Whizzers were available earlier, but they could not be purchased in a complete, ready-to-run, state from a catalog or department store, only as a kit and later (1950s, I believe) as complete units that could be purchased from bicycle shops, etc.
-They had a very unique accelerator and brake design in which BOTH the throttle and brake operated off of one control level on the handlebars. Pull in to stop, let it out to go. Basically means that the scooter could not idle without the lever being held in tightly. Looking at it now, it's easy to say "what were they thinking!" and it seems like a pretty dangerous design. Remember if you let go, the scooter would go full blast, not stop. It seems to me that maybe it should have been the other way around, but it wasn't.
-The original clutch design was very unique. It was an oil-filled centrifugal clutch they called a "fluid drive." They were made from aluminum and have a mushroom kind of look to them. The clutch is said to have been originally designed for the scooter and later adapted to other uses. The scooter was primarily manufactured by the Beam Manufacturing Company in Webster City, Iowa. Their primary business was automatic washing machines. They company eventually became Electrolux Home Products before the plant closed (just in the last couple of years) and the town lost 500+ plant jobs to Mexico. Anyway...back to the clutch. Beam was apparently having lots of vibration and dancing issues with the automatic washer. At some point, someone decided that perhaps they should adapt the fluid drive scooter clutch to it. They did, the washer ran smooth, and the clutch became the part that made mass marketing and sale of the automatic washing machine truly viable. The technology was later licensed to many other companies and variations of this clutch are still used to this day. I guess you could say we owe our clean clothes to a little motor scooter from Iowa!
Here are a few photos of one of my Doodle Bugs, taken a few years ago at the Doodle Bug Reunion. This is a 1946 Doodle Bug, model A (first production model) with the fluid clutch and Bendix accessory lighting kit. The "Western Flyer" decal on the side is rarely seen but is correct...this bike had the original side panels with those decals on it.
