A Chippewa Park Bumper Car Trailer....1959 to 1989....read on....

This is an unidentified young lady having a ton of fun in a 1959 Lusse Auto Skooter Bumper Car at the Chippewa Park Amusement Park in the 1960's here in Fort William, Ontario(Now Thunder Bay).  This was the first generation of Bumper Cars to be used at Chippewa Park.  In the late 1980's I had a chance to purchase one of these from the City.  A trend at the time was to convert one of these to a utility trailer to be used with a Street Rod or Hot Rod......so, smitten by the idea, I went ahead to build one as a utility trailer for my 1933 Ford Victoria.  I finished my '33 Ford in about 1986 and owned it until about 1989.  I started the trailer in 1986 from a bit of a basket case bumper car.  It was a 1959 Sport Skooter which was the first one made of fiberglass and actually had used a 1958 Chevrolet Impala ornament on the hood.

The photo below shows pretty much how it looked when I picked it up and the photo on the right, I found on the Internet explaining a bit about the 1959 model.  On dis-assembly I found amusement ride tickets from an amusement park in New York city.....so I imagine Fort William(Chippewa Park) had purchased this ride from them initially. 

Click on all photos for enlargements!

The photos below show the bumper car disassembled.  You can see my '33 Ford in the background of the first picture here.  It is already painted yellow to match the car and reverse masked to do the flame work.  The second photo shows the light orange front with the flame tips painted blue and the flame arcs painted red.....the magic begins as the masking tape is removed

This next picture is the masking tape removed making all the flame work and all the colours coming together.

The final step in the paint work is a white outline around the flames, then a complete clear coat covering everything.  The white pin striping make the flames jump off the car.

Finally here is the complete assembled project.  I kept the trailer until I sold my '33 Ford.  I sold it to a guy from Minneapolis.  He came up to Duluth to meet half way for the pick up....and I never saw it again until an ebay listing in about 2004 in Philadelphia.

 

This is what the ebay listing looked like back then and I tried to call and email the guy without any success...so I guess it ended up being sold.  I really don't want it back, but I would like to know where it is...so if any of you out there have seen this...please email me...Thanks.

This is my '33 Ford Victoria that I built the trailer for.....I know where this car is today but not the trailer.

It's amazing what guys are doing with old bumper cars now, such as modifying them for use on the road....do a search on the Internet under "Street Legal Bumper Cars" to see some of these.