Vintage Kart book

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Jim Pelletterie
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Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2007 4:12 pm
Vintage Karting items owned: 58 Dart kart, 60 go-kart 800, 60 Bug 58/59 percival hellcat 60 Bonanza kart
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Vintage Kart book

Post by Jim Pelletterie » Thu Jun 21, 2007 11:31 pm

With all the different manufactures during the early years has anyone compiled pictures and descriptions of these karts. It would make a valueable tool in the purchase and restoration of these gems. I for one would purchase a book or help in the production of one. Your thoughts?

Dean Seavers
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Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:51 am
Vintage Karting items owned: '66 Chap, '61 Bug Stinger, '61 McCulloch R-1, '60 Go Kart 800, '60 Bug Wasp, '60 Weirdo

Re: Vintage Kart book

Post by Dean Seavers » Fri Jun 22, 2007 4:04 am

Hey Jim-

Not sure there are enough vintage karters out there to make publishing a book viable, not to mention someone to undertake the hours of research and writing the thing.

Generally copies of the '61 Dick Day book and the various Trend publication books from the '59-61 period turn up pretty regularly for not too much money. Magazines like Karting World, Kart, Rod and Custom through the early 60's and Hot Rod in '60 and '61 cover the early gaps. The Tex Smith book covers the late 60's period pretty well and Karting World was still around after the other kart-specific mags went under to fill in the '62-'66 period. 1968 and 69 saw the brief appearance of, but wonderfully written Modern Karting magazine. 1967 seems to be the only year of the vintage era that isn't well-represented in print. All that stuff is out there if you dig and are patient.

Short of that, there have been a lot of "what kind of kart do I have" posts over the years on the various boards, with typically a lot of good responses and information. In this day and age, it easy to just copy the pics and info for your own PC files and over time you'll end up with a pretty good library of info.

Best of luck-
Dean
Last edited by Dean Seavers on Fri Jun 22, 2007 10:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

Rob Voska
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Re: Vintage Kart book

Post by Rob Voska » Fri Jun 22, 2007 6:58 am

Or collect your own library of vintage kart magazines........it's fun and another aspect of the sport.

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Jeff Campbell
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Vintage Karting items owned: 1961 Fox Go-Boy MC20's
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Re: Vintage Kart book

Post by Jeff Campbell » Mon Jun 25, 2007 5:26 pm

... reminder: you will find most of the vintage books published that are good for reference, on this page:

http://rearenginekarts.com/karting%20books.htm

Also, as mentioned, magazines are excellent also for reference info, you will find many of these mags and books on ebay, try these links to get right to these items:

http://rearenginekarts.com/mags%20books%20guides.htm

http://www.vintagepowersport.com/vka/ht ... books.html (the search tool I put on the VKA site is a newer version, and finds more of the good stuff)


IMO, the books below are the "must have" books for every vintage karter.

"The Complete Book of Karting" -by Dick Day, 1961
"Karting" - by Leroi 'Tex' Smith, 1971
"Karting Handbook" - by Bob Pendergast 1961

Jeff

Mark Havery
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Joined: Wed Jun 20, 2007 6:25 am
Vintage Karting items owned: Poison Arrow, Chaparral, McCulloch R-1
Dart Mean Machine and the "Mongrel Kart"

Re: Vintage Kart book

Post by Mark Havery » Tue Jun 26, 2007 12:29 pm

Hi Jim,
James Bruni was compliling information for a book covering the history of vintage karts. He is the source of the information
on the history of Blackhawk Karts I used to write an article in the VKA news letter. I know he interviewed Marshall about the history of Blackhawk karts and got rare archive photos to use in his book. He did the same with the other makers of
karts from the past. I first of heard of him through Scott Wigginton and Scott passed my info on to him regarding my
Poison Arrow.
Mark

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