McCulloch motor on AMF moped

[Pat York]

I read in The Kurtis Kraft Story (Ed Hitze) and Kurtis Kraft, Masterworks of Speed and Style (Gordon Eliot White) that Robert McCulloch was involved with Kurtis Kraft in the early 50's along with Ed Walsh, of Novi Indy car fame. They, among some others bought into the Kurtis Sports car enterprise. McCulloch did the fiberglass bodies and other things, along with a golf cart project called the Golf Pony. According to Frank Kurtis, 95% were returned due to parts failures. Later on,The McCulloch group admitted to bankruptcy, but their lawyers blamed mismangement, stealing, neglect on Kurtis himself. Kurtis claimed the mfg. group had 14 engineers in house and only 4 in production. Kurtis lost almost everything (shop machines,tools, all business records for KK) due to some "good lawyering" on the investors part. I'm not slamming Mc, but it almost put KK totally out of business. Both of these books have nice sections on Karting and 1/4 midget projects they built in the early years of the sport. Interesting reads if you can get ahold of them

[Brian Thomas]

This is a great read ,,, keep it coming .

Thanks

Brian

[lynn haddock]

great stuff,,,,,,THANKS Doug

[Doug Milliken]

Wow, a post from the great Lynn Haddock. I've been retired for almost 3 years now and though I keep busy enough with day trading in the stock market, I do have more free time than ever. A year or so I was googling weird stuff including vintage racing and came across a blog, I think it was on a 4-cycle karting website, where someone asked the question "who was the greatest American kart racer ever?". And there were over 100 posts. It's kind of like who was greater, Andretti or Foyt. Lots of great ones were put forth. After reading all the justifications I figured my vote would go to Lynn Haddock because of staying at the top of all forms of racing for so long and doing it from Chatanooga. It takes dedication and skill to get to the top, but to get to the top in all forms and stay there so long is a special accomplishment. Hi, Lynn. I raced against you a couple times but we never met.

Since members seem to like the McCulloch stories, I'll recall a couple more.

In the 1950s McCulloch manufactured a twin rotor helicopter for US Army and Navy application but it never got a big order, as it was with so many expensive projects. But the engine development continued on and when I started there was a radial helicopter engine on display in the engineering lab. The rights to their radial engine design were sold in 1974, the year I started at McC, to a company that I believe was started by the guy who designed the engine. You can see the story with a picture here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCulloch_MC-4

Follow some "External Links" at the bottom for more to the story.

Also, many of McCulloch's executives were golfers. Always inquisitive they asked a greenskeeper what was his biggest problem and he said it was traffic concentrated around the hole damaged the green so even though they moved the hole frequently, it left a bunch of blotches on the green. Undoubtedly over a beer in the clubhouse, they decided they could solve this problem. So they invented a mechanism to go into the hole so that at a given number of seconds after the ball contacted a sensor at the bottom of the hole, the ball would be jettisoned into a sand trap where it could be retrieved without uneccessary traffic around the hole. Before I reveal, can you guess why this idea didn't find a market? Yep, during test trials golfers would forget the instructions and, probably while fist pumping the defeat of their golfing partner, bend over the hole to retrieve their Titleist and would have that ball logo printed between their eyes. Too much liability.

Then there was the sailboat. McCulloch developed a two cylinder 2-stroke diesel engine for sailboats and of course they installed one in a sailboat and kept it at a slip rented at the Marina Del Rey harbor. Engineers were encouraged to check the boat out, put hours on the test engine, and file a report on how the engine performed. I was in a 3-man carpool that originated in Thousand Oaks, CA and went 60 or so miles to the McCulloch Engineering offices in Marina Del Rey. In route we picked up Don Samse, an Engineer and sailboat fanatic who later went to Mercury Marine. So he invited me to go out on the company sailboat one Friday after work, along with a couple other employees. We went down to the slip and Don unfurled the sail and sailed right out of the slip and all around the marina for a couple hours and then very carefully sailed it right back into the slip. I was surprised he never started the motor. When asked why, Don stated that no self respecting sailor ever uses a motor unless in distress. Did you see any distress? I wonder what he put in his report.

My first 6 months I was a dyno operator in the Engineering Lab. A lot of what I learned about historical projects was in the lunchroom. Very interesting discussions over lunch. In 1974 there were layoffs due to the bad economy. I remember Herb Zmina, a lab technician saying something to the effect "They can lay off 5 technicians but God forbid they should ever sell the U.S.S. Layoff" which was the new name they cristened the sailboat with. The lab technicians had to do all the work on the sailboat motor.

Enough for now........

Doug

[Doug Milliken]

Lynn, I wasn't dissing Chatanooga. When I re-read my post I saw it could have been interpreted that way. What I meant is, every race for you was an away game. Lot of travel miles, yes? I had the good fortune to have a lot of places to race with a lot of tough competition within a 90 minute drive, at least the last half of my racing life. Lots and lots of home games.

[lynn haddock]

Hey Doug,
no worries for any dis of Chattanooga -- I caught what you meant -- heck I am still keeping the road hot and logging miles -- I still tune on karts and do some tech as well as run a junior dragster team based from Chattanooga -- I am on the road about 20 weekends a year minimum -- I remember when you came back to Road Atlanta in the early 70's ? I remember that one for an epic battle I had in Stock Appearing with Team IKS,,,,,,,Eddie Huntley and Rick Gifford --- of course it was a 2 to 1 deal between the California guys as some no-name local hillbilly from Tennessee --- I think I officially got on their radar when I instigated a little double tank slapping incident as we came up for the bridge --- they kept "team" drafting by me so after a few laps I just laid back and did a very late "split" on them as we came up to the bridge --- great stuff ! I saw Rick a couple of years back at the Riverside vintage event but I don't think I ever saw Eddie much after that weekend in Atlanta.

[Sterling Brundick]

Wow! What an interesting read!!!! So informative. PLEASE keep it going. Thank you Doug, very much. Sterling

[Ronald Carbaugh]

I have been following this thread since I am always interested in the History of Racing and the Companies that helped make the different types of Racing Great. I have a Engineer Friend that I worked with at Honda that also worked for McCulloch in the 1960's. I was discussing with him some of the projects that had been discussed on this site. He said that his Uncle worked on the square piston project......good stuff.