Briggs & Stratton Flyer
The Briggs & Stratton Flyer is a small, simple, lightweight, two-seater with a wooden frame that doubles as the body and as the suspension. A small gasoline engine is mounted on a fifth wheel, or motor wheel, to drive the flyer.
The direct drive motor wheel was developed by Arthur William Wall of Birmingham, England around 1910 to power a bicycle. The concept of attaching the motor directly to the wheel was not new; Ferdinand Porsche developed one around 1900, but his motor wheel was electric. The A.O. Smith Corporation of Milwaukee, Wisconsin acquired the U.S. manufacturing rights to the Wall motorwheel in 1914 and first produced the motor wheel for use on bicycles, but later added the wooden-framed buckboard car. In 1919 the manufacturing rights were purchased by the Briggs & Stratton Company, who produced the Motor Wheel and Flyers until 1925, when they sold the Flyer to Automotive Electric Services Corporation. The Automotive Electric Services continued to produce the Flyer until the supply of engines ran out, then they substituted an electric motor driven by a battery.
Briggs & Stratton kept the motor that had been the heart of the Motor Wheel and adapted it to other applications such as lawn mowers and running small equipment. The Motor Wheel motor was the progenitor of all Briggs & Stratton motors to follow.
Virtually all Flyers were painted red and were known widely as the “Red Bug”.
External Links
Briggs & Stratton Company website
Source:
Altman, Jim, “The Motor Wheel”, Antique Automobile, March-April 1971, 19-24.