Midget Motorcycle Built By Girl
When the modern Pippa passes, although it is on a motor-cycle, all is as well with the world on her day off from work as it was with Browning’s little silk mill worker in Asolo. Pippa may prefer a flying machine, but a motor-cycle is simpler for a wageearner to possess.
This particular Pippa, known to patrons o'f a hotel coffee shop in Washington as Gladys Dawson, when 16 years old won her student’s pilot license as an aviator, has made 16 parachute jumps, has made her first glider flight, and is a competitor in local motorcycle hill climbing contests. Miss Dawson also like to pry into the mechanics of flying apparatus and that is how she came to build a peewee motor-cycle that will do 35 miles an hour. Fortunately she has a younger brother and sister to enjoy it.
The engine is of a type discarded by the United States Navy, originally used to drive generators which charged, radio batteries on battleships. The frame is made of old bicycle frames hammered out and welded together, the gas and oil lines are tubing bought at a second store. The gas tank is a tin-can. The wheels are airplane wheels 18 inches in diameter. The machine stands 29 inches high and is three feet 11 inches long.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NA19370331.2.30
Bibliographic details
Northern Advocate, 31 March 1937, Page 4
Word Count
222Midget Motorcycle Built By Girl Northern Advocate, 31 March 1937, Page 4
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