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Lance Lambert
�The Vintage Vehicle Show�

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TANK YOU VERY MUCH

What has a top speed of 15 miles per hour, is �fuel injected�, and every two blocks makes you feel like both a race car driver coming into the pits and a doctor performing surgery?

My neighborhood in the 1950�s and 1960�s was filled with a large assortment of tiny motorized vehicles. It seemed that every other house had a 12 year old boy with a go-cart or �doodlebug� scooter. The go-carts usually were made of plywood & 2X4s and powered by a surplus lawn mower engine. The �doodlebugs� were two wheeled contraptions that, thanks to young imaginations, were as fast and exciting as any real motorcycle. We seemed to have no trouble driving these all over the neighborhood without anyone ever being stopped by the local officials. My father being a police officer may have helped in that matter.

My big brother and I shared a two wheeled chariot that was blue, seated two and scooted, as a scooter should, along at blistering speeds of nearly two digits. However, there was one serious problem; it didn�t have a gas tank. How, you ask, could it be operated without the second most necessary item of any powered vehicle? No problem! My father, being a cop, brought home surplus official items and confiscated contraband that was not usually found in my neighborhood�s homes. There was the siren that a few years later found its way into my friends 1955 Ford, and a flare gun that, thanks to my poor marksmanship, started a neighbor�s roof on fire. And there was a syringe.

Now imagine this; you have this cool little scooter that has no gas tank and a dad that thinks you will probably live longer if he doesn�t provide this missing item. And you have a syringe. So here�s what you do; fill a pop bottle with gas, insert and fill the syringe and then squirt the gas into the fuel line of the scooter�s motor. Then pull the rope start and off you go scooting along with a bottle of gas between your legs, a dripping syringe in your hand and a smile on your face. Then, approximately two blocks later, stop and do it all again.

One of the neighborhood dads watched me go through this ritual and called me over. I don�t know if he wanted to help me fix the scooter�s deficiency or if he just didn�t think a 12 year old kid with a syringe dripping of gas was an asset to the neighborhood. We went into his garage where he took an empty pint can, a brass fitting, some solder and within a few minutes turned it all into a gas tank. We tied it to the frame, poured in the remainder of the pop bottle petroleum and off I went.

Have I ever told you the story about the parachute that my dad brought home and what I did with it?

Program Note: The �Vintage Vehicle Show� can now be seen anytime on Comcast�s On Demand programming.

You can see the Vintage Vehicle show with Lance Lambert on 43 stations throughout the country, see your local listings for times and channels or go to: www.vintagevehicletv.com

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