rearenginekarts.com

Like the title says, I'm trying to find out about these pipes. What were they originally meant for? Bill Matthews was a bicycle accessory company that did some minibikes in the early 60s, and from what I can figure out, the design was bought out by Steens somewhere between 1962 and 1965. There are brochure ads for the bikes out there, and some with Clinton 2 strokes, but none showing the pipes. I've gotten a couple of the pipes from a guy that reprod them for someone who had an original. I'm guessing that guy was Terry. I have 2 Matthews Minibikes that at this point are the only 2 like them out there.

Tom,

I may have a Bill Matthews ad that shows them somewhere in my pile of magazines.
I didn't do the copies and I probably bought a few from the same guy.
I'm sure Bill modeled them after the megaphone exhaust that Clinton put on the E65.
I don't remember if the ones from Bill had the modified flange that allows them to bolt onto an A490 or an E65.
Here is the standard E65 megaphone.

Thanks for the reply Terry. I'd love to see the ad if you ever run across it. I'm really just intrigued that he actually did them. He was primarily just a bicycle accessory manufacturer that jumped into the minibike game when they were hot like many others who were already in a similar manufacturing industry, but none of the minibike ads show the pipe although some did come with Clinton 2 strokes. He obviously got out of minibikes as fast as he got in because there aren't any. I'm really surprised at the lack of info on the internet for his company in general, and just as surprised at how many Rocket cycle ads there are on ebay.

Here's the bike with the Matthews pipe...this one was done in stainless. I just got another one made of aluminum too.

I've seen those Panther exhausts show up on eBay at regular intervals.