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Dream Bike
Harvested from Popular Science – March, 1953.
One night in March, 1950, O. Ray Courtney worked until two a.m. and drove home discouraged. He was trying to design a better motorcycle. He wanted one with the seat forward, with better cooling, better springing and a more beautiful body. Discarded sketches littered the floor of his shop.
That night in a dream he saw a steamlined beauty skim across a flowered field. Too excited to report for work the next day, he hastily put his dream on paper – and he is riding that dream cycle now through the streets of Pontiac, Mich.
Vespa or Lambretta? That’s been the conversation in my head lately, as I consider taking on an old scooter project. But none of that matters now that I have seen the 1950 Courtney Enterprise. I would have a tough time settling for anything less than a custom mega-scoot!
FRAME is 1 1/8 inch chrome-steel tubing. Handlebars, 10 1/2 inches forward on an extenstion tube, are mounted on a second head. They connect through drag links to the fork.
STREAMLINING continues to tail. Machine is 26 inches wide. Bulges flanking sides of rear wheel are metal-covered saddlebags.
TWO CAN RIDE comfortably on the big seat. Long footboards add to the comfort, and prevent splashing. The Enterprise is 112 inches long and weighs 580 pounds.
Everybody run out and check you grandpa’s barn right now! This bike must still exist. It seems unimaginable that something like this would ever get junked.
if your original quandry is still troubling you, here’s your answer.. and it’s painful for me to say this.. I’ve been a devoted Lambrettista for more than 10 years and have long argued it’s advantages (streamlined! mid-mounted engined = perfect balance! more powerful! etc. )..
but as my (admittedly slow) 3 year restoration of my LI150 lammy was nearly complete, my wife picked up a ‘65 Vespa.. the thing is so ridiculously easy to work on.. and has so few pieces.. it’s definitely the easier route into scootering..
And, of course, there’s Boyd Coddington’s 1959 Impala-inspired show bike:
http://www.billetwheel.com/projects/impalabike.htm
I still prefer the Courtney Enterprise, though, it seems more “futuristic” – in a 1950’s way – to me :-)
Coddington’s bike looks like a Pisticio colored Bat Cycle. I agree, the Enterprise is too cool. I hope it does still exist somewhere.
I wonder if you’ve heard fo the Defiant scooter. It’s a frame you can buy and put an engine into. I think they based it on a Harley softtail but there was talk of using different engines. It makes a very big, very fast, scooter and you can then put on a body of your own making.
If you want to see a sleek design on a scooter….think Salsbury……….jb
well i dont cair much except man do i want one.
some one should dream up a kit for a gold wing or
some such fullsize bike for the rest of us.
that would fit in todays retro-lifestyle
dont you think?
Very interesting. I recognize the powerplant as some model of Indian, I’ve no idea of which model. Very much ahead of the time is the long travel rear swing arm suspension. Most bikes were still short travel rears, most being plunger. It also looks like he used a center-hub to pivot the front wheel left to right, another design that even today is only used on a few exotic bikes.
Thanks for sharing.
Maybe Jay Leno have one.
Two words, Zundapp Bella
[...] colored Bat Cycle. I agree, the Enterprise is too cool. I hope it does still exist somewhere. …http://www.finkbuilt.com/blog/custom-motorcycle/Boyd Coddington Interview ? Videos ? WebRidesTV … Amber Goetz got a chance to talk one on one with [...]
THIS MOTORCYCLE WAS DISPLAYED AT THE HARD ROCK CAFE AT UNIVERSAL STUDIOS A FEW TEARS AGO. IT HADD A DUMMY SANTA CLAUS SITTING ON THE SADDLE.
CHRIS RENHAM, ENGLAND
Ray Courtney was my grandfather and I remember the Enterprise well; when I was a little girl I begged him to promise me that when I was old enough, I could ride it.
I don’t know what happened to the original bike (and Jay is right, I beliebe the powerplant is Indian). I’d be surprised if the original bike ended up at the Hard Rock, as the last I heard of it, my uncle (who is now deceased) had it in his possession in Florida. It’s possible one of his sons sold it, I suppose…
It definitely was on display at the hard rock in Orlando Florida.
it was green and white and I actually took a photo of it because I had never seen one before. It looked too professionally built to be a home built “special”.
Since this article whetted my appetite I have since managed to acquire a sales brochure for the machine (in the U.S.)
A fascinating machine of its time—though there was a similar machine built in Germany between the wars.
Well, The Hard Rock Cafe have one of this at Orlando, Florida and sell a pin with the image of Enterprise in green aqua and white with a reference about like “James Dean Motorcycle”. I saw in a website refer to Orlando Warehouse of Hard Rock Cafe about it, the article talks about this Entreprise motorcycle was driven by James Dean in a scene of “Rebel without cause” that later at edition room was discarded…
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