A patriotic kiddo prepares his very aerodynamic ‘Spitfire’ for a run down Cross Road, Fullarton, Adelaide in the Winter of 1941…
We all start to race somewhere, I ‘progressed’ from billycarts! I wonder if this dude took steps beyond the Unley Soap Box Derby to bigger and better automotive things in the years to come? Love the schoolkids formal cold weather attire- caps, cloaks, coats and ties very much to the fore.
The run down Cross Road, from ‘the old gum tree’ to Fullarton Road attracted a crowd of 15,000! people to watch 100 competitors achieve speeds of up to 70 km/h. The crowd is indicative, I guess, of just how starved people were of any form of entertainment during the long, bleak, difficult war years.
Photo Credit…
State Library of South Australia
primotipo... 
Being an American who never has set foot in Australia, I had to look up the term billycart to be certain that it was what I imagined it was (it is). http://billycarthq.com/what-is-a-billycart/
Hi Emery,
Its interesting to see the derivation of the name, i’d not wondered where it came from. I gather ‘Soap Box Derbys’ were (are?) a big thing in the US. Key ‘Soap Box Derby’ into the primotipo search engine too see a quickie article I did a couple of years ago.
As a kid I cannot tell you the untold hours and fun we local kids had particularly during school holidays in building billy-carts and running them down the local streets with the steepest hills- sourcing ball-bearings from the local ‘servos’ (car service stations or garages) and all the rest. My mum has a gazillion shots of us as kids but none of the ‘carts sadly!
Mark
Except the contention in that link that, “(FYI the term ‘go cart’ is short for goat carts which were once pulled by goats, but now refer to a motorized cart.)”
No. The “go cart” term was used for a baby buggy in the early 20th century. The guys who called their racing kart a “Go Kart” (trademarked) in the late 50s probably didn’t even know that.
Yes, I was suspicious of that, too!
[…] Nineteen-forties d’yer reckon? All of us with a billy-cart or three in our past can relate to this wonderful shot. More on billy-carts; https://primotipo.com/2019/02/10/spitty/ […]
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