A
truly
practical
accessory
for
your
VW

  Tired of finding dented bumpers and guards when you return to your parked VW?  Here's a really effective solution from Improbable Industries.  The VW Parking Hammer should bring an end to your problems.  Fastened to your rear bumper with the sturdy built-in clamps, its imposing appearance intimidates the driver of even the largest and most powerful cars.
  A large, legible warning to STOP is formed integrally with the actuating plate.  If anyone is so injudicious as to put any excessive pressure, on this plate, it will move forward far enough to release a simple pawl type safety catch.  The catch, being released, no longer restrains the heavy coil spring, heart of the device.  With the spring exerting its full power, and gravity lending its valuable assistance, WHANGO!  There is a gratifying loud crash as the indestructable tool steel head strikes home.  The careless driver will be appropriately astonished as he sees a happy baby face smiling up at him from the tremendous dent in the top of his hood, offering the cheerful admonishment "too close."  His astonishment will in no way be lessened when he discovers that the hammer's face contained razor sharp reversed letters which have permanently inscribed in his hood the legend "You have just run into a Volkswagen."

[I have the temerity (again) to second guess the Maître!  It's the DRIVER of the car hitting the VW that I'd want to "impress"; i.e. - I'd want HIM (or HER) to see the image just impressed into his (her) hood.  Thus, I'd prefer the stamp to look like this:]

(excerpted image 3x revised 30 Jul 2008 by S. Berliner, III -
courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

Woo-hah!  A typo!  A real, honest-to-Murgatroyd typo!  See if you can spot it.   (23 Dec 2014)

Here's a corrected image:

(excerpted image 3x re-revised 23 Dec 2014 by S. Berliner, III -
courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

See it?

- - - * - - -

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(image 4 courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

West Coast Sports Car Journal, circa 1958

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(image 5 courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

S. Mott caption:  5.  Lead illustration for "Charlie Lucky & The Grand Prix Pignatelli" article. This was the first in a series of six "Pignatelli" articles by Robert G. Lurie. Basic theme: Innocent American-Italian sports car driver is coerced by Mafia relatives to unknowingly smuggle cocaine into the U.S. This was a particularly delicious assignment as it allowed me to design ferocious sports cars of my dreams!

Sports Cars Illustrated magazine, May 1958 to October 1963.

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(image 6 courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

Sidecar Trials offer something for the birds

CYCLE WORLD MAGAZINE

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(image 7 courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

SCIENCE & MECHANICS
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(image 8 courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

Published in SCIENCE & MECHANICS

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(image 9 courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

Seen in the Irish Transport Museum, Killarney, Republic of Ireland

[Singles #10 is posted with Les 24 Heures de Choo-Choo" [the 24 Hours of Choo-Choo (as in Le Mans).]

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(image 11 courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

One of the more fascinating vehicles at the 1985 Monterey Historic Automobile Races was this extremely rare 1921 Yumhammer TJ-16 Roadster. Little known outside of Muncie, Indiana, genius/blacksmith designer Yumhammer J. Horsefalls hammered this work of art out of used farm implements. It was powered by a double row of four hyper hot Model-T Rajo engines he welded into a 16-cylinder monster. Driving it himself, Horsefalls would have qualified for the 1924 Indy 500 had not his machine been hit by lightening and thrown out of control! Fortunately, there was little damage and no injuries. Unfortunately, Horsefalls was permanently disqualified from racing at Indy having aroused suspicions he was a warlock, and that the color of his car, green, from then on at Indy would be considered bad luck.

[I gotta insert my thoughts here - this text is simply not worthy of such a magnificent and inspired work of art!  (Also - that crank is bigger than the engine!) - SB,III]

[Well, it turns out that the "Yumhammer" is a REAL car but that Stan has no record of what it actually was; he saw it at the 1985 Pebble Beach antique car races.]  “We don’t know the name and date of this marvelous 1920-ish race car.  If you know, and can prove it, let us know and we will print the name and date, and give you credit.” [Sez Stan - but I agree; I thought it might have been an early Miller but can't verify that. - SB,III]

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(image 12 courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

"After 30,000 miles of it, Osgood swore never again to buy a car with a rumble seat."

R&T CIRCA 1990

[Singles #13 is posted with Stan Mott, Artist.]

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(image 14 courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

AUTOMOBILE MAGAZINE

[Singles #15 is posted with Stan Mott, Artist.]

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(image 16 courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

An enthusiast taking advantage of a highly polished Bugatti Type 37 at Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.

Automobile magazine

[Yum, yum!]

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(image 17 courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

[I have to mention here that this is also MY vision of driver's heaven; simply BRILLIANT! - SB,III]

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(image 18 courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

WARM UP SKETCHES FOR SOME FEATURE OR ANOTHER.

PHOTO OUTSIDE PORSCHE MUSEUM, ZUFFENHAUSEN, GERMANY.

[Although I have posted recent photos of Stan down further on this page,
I've excerpted and posted this one here:]

(image x18 excerpted 30 Jul 08 by S. Berliner, III -
courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

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(image 19 courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

S. Mott caption:  Singles 19.  This is a rough copy of one of the greatest automotive posters of all time,
circa 1910.  Inserted here because it's so bitchin'.

Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany

---

[That's it!  All the Singles are done, and thus all Stan's input is now on line! - SB,III]   (30 Jul 08)

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Gokart Drawings and Photos

From the Guinness Book of World Records, 1970 edition:

"The only recorded instance of a gokart being driven around the world was a circumnavigation by Stan Mott of New York, who drove a Lambretta-engined 175-c.c. Italkart wIth a ground clearance of two inches, 23,300 land miles through 28 countries from February 15, 1961, to June 5, 1964, beginning and finishing in New York."

[click on thumbnailed pictures for larger/sharper images]
(images courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

The story behind these drawings, as briefly as possible:  Back in 1961, gokarts were a worldwide fad.  Whenever I was stopped by police in Italy, a crowd gathered.  They always took my side and shouted the police down.  In France, the French considered me insane.  But, as they consider insanity part of life, and as I was alive, I had a right to drive on French roads.  Not so in England.  British customs impounded my gokart as soon as I drove off the Calais/Dover ferry.  A British gokart fan, whom I had befriended by mail, picked me up in his van and delivered me and gokart to London.  There we figured I could go on TV, gain public sympathy, and special permission to drive on English roads.  I got on the Oiff Mitchelmore TV show.  But no special permission.  The problem then was to get back to Dover, 70 miles east.  My British fan didn't have the time.  I'd have to drive.  How? If gokarts were illegal, what about a teeny experimental car?  Ah!  I built a speedy dart thing out of a TV cardboard box, masking tape and grey paint.  I lettered "CYCLOPS" on the front and "EXPERIMENTAL--DANGER" on the sides for style, attached a Florida license plate an American sailor gave me in Naples for legality, and at 2 a.m set out.  All went well... until it rained.  Racing down the M20 highway, trying to reach Dover before daylight, water arcing off the tires, the body began to disintegrate.  The engine shut down.  A piece of wet cardboard had plastered itself on the Lambretta 175cc engine's cooling air intake.  Over heated.  I ripped it off and waited.  The rain increased.  The engine cooled and started.  Off again, with pieces of the body flapping and ripping off.  The rain became torrential.  When I reached Dover, the body looked like a half eaten sardine.  I tried to hide in the ferry dock.  A bobby spotted me.  The game was up.  He sauntered over.  "I say, I saw this on the telly.  Good going!"  God bless you, sir, I thought.  "May I take a photo of you next to the gokart?", I asked.  "Oh, quite.  I'll pretend I'm writing you up.  Can't approve of anything illegal, ha, ha!"  "No sir."  Click!  I escaped on the next ferry.

From "A Kart In Jolly England", Apri1 1963 Karting World magazine.

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(image courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)
1.  Surveying the terrain outside Quarzazate, Morrocco.

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(image courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)
2.  Gokart in rain-ravaged Cyclops cardboard body not fooling Bobby in Dover, England.

Note: For those readers who no longer believe in photographs in this Photoshopped world,
see genuine, non-retouched drawings.

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(image courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)
3.  On the "Right side" of The Wall, West Berlin, with Swiss traveling companion Christine having just escaped Soviet dominated East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, July 1962.

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(image courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)
4.  Taking a shortcut in Hannover, Germany, during the wet summer of 1962.

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(image courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)
5.  Local traffic outside Damascus, Syria, May 1963.

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(image courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)
6.  Racing gokarts with King Hussein of Jordan at Amman Airport, June 1963.

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(image courtesy of and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)
7.  Asking directions outside Badlapur, India, en route from Mumbai to Poona, August 1963.

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Recent Photos of Stan Mott

Since all true fans of Stan Mott want to see how the Maître has fared through the ages, here he is at the controls of Car 41 in the Orlando (Florida) Video Game Grand Prix:

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(image of, and courtesy of, and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

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(image of, and courtesy of, and © S. Mott - all rights reserved)

"I kicked it hard and got a free ride!"

[Note also the photo posted above with Singles Cartoon #18 - SB,III]