| This was the last season for sunburst wheels, by 1942 they had all been replaced by hard rubber (carnie style) wheels as seen in picture #4. This due to the damage done to the newly paved streets now more common in cities |
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Cole Bros. Circus 1941 #5
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2 comments:
"Hard" rubber seems to be a popular term, but was the material really a higher durometer than pneumatic tire rubber? How about "solid" rubber?
Carnivals may have introduced such wheels, but they seem to have come out of World War I surplus, when scads of Liberty trucks and other vehicles were sold as war surplus. They helped to convert commercial enterprises from horse and wagon to motor trucks. There was somewhat of an impact on the circus business, with Downie Bros. leading the way as the first successful truck show in 1926, but it rolled on pneumatic tires.
If you look closely at early photos of the Pawnee Bill Wild West organ wagon, you will actually find that it had solid rubber tires, too. So did many carriages, in an effort to dampen out rough riding on cobblestone and Belgian block streets.
They never went flat, required nil maintenence and eatisfied local officials to a big degree. All the Mack Trucks had them as I recall. I am sure that over twenty or thirty MPH they would shimmey.Wagons with spring undercarraige made4 riding on them passable.
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