Mobility Scooter - 1960s

[Barry]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/mobilty-scooter-1970s-old-skool-barn-find-rare-/321037659739?pt=UK_Health_Beauty_Mobility_Disability_Medical_ET&hash=item4abf55ee5b

Stuart?

[richard]

now there i draw the line . thats a mobility scooter so not a microcar .

[Rob Dobie]

It could be if you stick a 9e in it. 

[Barry]

There is a fine line between mobility scooters and the not so unusual microcars.....like Messerschmitts!

[Big Al]

You can even have a fuel cap saying Mobilmix on it, so it must be true. The Tiger is the ultimate Mobility Scooter. The truth is out.

[richard]

You could put a sachs 200 engine in but it would never be a microcar . We are making a laughing stock of ourselves. - get it off !

[blob]

A Battery car,  Is not a microcar!

[Bob Purton]

I would take it off myself but then that would be seen as authoritarian. When I decided to get re involved with microcars over twenty years ago now I thought Great! The fun image of the early sixties where bubblecars were groovy, driven by young people with a sense of fun frivolity, Kings road, flower power, and besides that the appeal of the designs, in ovation of the mechanics etc, all that was most appealing to me and was the image they had when I was involved before in the early seventies. I have to say its been a huge disappointment to me this time around that anything and anybody with a motor and wheels has tried to attach itself to the world of microcars. I will never understand it. If you have a tractor join a tractor club, lawn mowers, join a lawnmower society, at least Stuart has set up an independant register and magazine for IC's for which I hugely admire him for. What is it about Rumcars that attracts people with this stuff? Maybe its time to say goodbye and join a bubblecar club.

[richard]

Whilst agreeing with some of your sentiments bob you may have hit the nail on the head ! By mistake ! I like micros because I am into nostalgia, vintage motoring, collectables, collecting ,jumbling etc. I am not and never will be interested in image or trendiness. You and some others obviously have engineering skills which I have none of . But I learn . Standard spec is all for me . I do agree then let's ban mopeds, aircraft etc.

[Bob Purton]

Well at least the off topic lounge seperates unrelated stuff [well at least its supposed to, we still get people like Barry putting surgical appliances on the microcar topics!] , but I was never in favour of its set up as I felt it would just open up the floodgates, which it has.

[richard]

Agreed praps off topic should be only highway motoring related and can include. Associated means but no weird stuff or dodgy humour - al

[Barry]

Originally I thought it was early 1960's and so has some interest as it had survived to this day.  The advertiser changed it to 1970's after I posted which makes it not as interesting - yet.
I agree that it shouldn't  be on here as anything to do with microcars but the off-topic lounge does at least keep everyone's blood going round when true unusual microcar discussions are sparse.

I will take it off now that I know it is only forty years old...............

[Bob Purton]

You may as well leave it now Barry as a whole thread has been spawned by it which would be contextless once removed. I dont understand what age has to do with it, is an old turnip of more interest than a new turnip to a microcar enthusiast?

[richard]

No age not a factor , could be 1920s but so what but the new seasons cabbages seem to attract some of us more than others ho ho let's all be friends . Season of goodwill. Praps christmas is getting us all excited

[Stuart Cyphus]

 You can't yank it til I've had my say! (Looks round for Frankie Howerd...)     This Batricar is indeed "only" 1970s or thereabouts. It's a Mk 1 and therefore will date from somewhere between 1976 & 1982. If we knew the chassis number I could give the exact year....  

 Batricar Ltd was originally founded as Braune Batric Ltd of Stroud, Gloucestershire in the mid 1960s and produced industrial handling appliances. In 1970 Braune Batric Ltd branched out into mobility aids following the introduction of the 1970 Chronic Sick and disabled persons Act, this act altering legislation to permit electric powered 4mph chairs or "buggies" to proceed along the pavement instead of solely the road has had been the case for any powered chair or buggy prior to 1970. Braune's 1970 effort was the Braune Batric Chair, a 3-wheeled powered "wheelchair". This was followed in 1976 by the Braune "Batricar", the first real uk "mobility scooter" as we recognise them today. From around 1983 Braune Batric Ltd changed their name to "Batricar Ltd" and the rest of the history is a subject for another day.

 Incidental, whilst we're talking mobility scooters, I remind everyone that my 1963 Wrigley Electric Chair is still the UK's oldest known outdoor "powered chair, mobility, for the use of" and hence is the Grandad of what would lead on to the 1970 Act mentioned above, and the Batricar a few years later.  I draw intrested parties attention to my attached article on the Prehistory of the Mobility Scooter, from an early Conveyancer magazine...