TRACTOR TRIVIA and other interesting stuff 2/24/2024

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Eshelman Garden Tractors and so much more.

The Cheston Eshelman Company manufactured several garden tractor models with one, two, three or four wheels to fit the needs of any gardener. One of the unique features of Eshelman tractors was the use of cast iron and cast aluminum body parts rather than sheet metal. They also built mowers, tillers micro-cars, scooters, postal delivery vehicles, motor scooters, pleasure boats, aircraft, golf carts, snowplows, trailers, and more. Eshelman also built dreams of the future.

When Mike Vance popularized the phrase "thinking out of the box" he must have had Cheston Eshelman as a template for that expression. His moto seemed to be if everyone’s going that way, I will go this other way. Yeah, I’m gonna stumble but I’m also gonna stumble upon an idea no one else came up with. To say that he was unorthodox is an understatement.

According to a July 19, 1942 article in the Kansas City Star newspaper (article below), Eshelman had been rescued from a 1939 crash into the Atlantic Ocean 173 miles east of Boston. He told the fisherman who saved him that he had been on his way to Mars in his rented airplane. His pilot’s license was revoked. A couple of years later Eshelman designed and built a successful prototype flying wing aircraft. He boasted that his design would make all existing aircraft prehistoric and obsolete. A newspaper article called it a “Flying Flounder.” Eshelman contacted President Franklin Roosevelt in 1942 urging him to allow Eshelman to build these planes for the military. Roosevelt wasn’t interested which may have saved the lives of an untold number of pilots.

Since the skis seemed a bit unfriendly Eshelman had the brainstorm to buy surplus steel airplane fuel tanks from the military, and repurpose them as a “Rocket Boat,” capitalizing on the space craze of the day.

Eshelman didn’t stop there. He next set his sights back on the open waters with a concept for a combination boat/car, patented in 1961. One of the more interesting features of the amphibious car is a sliding canopy, so the vehicle could be used for all-weather boating, not just on sunny days. Unfortunately, this idea never materialized, even in prototype form.

In the 1953 Eshelman’s ventured into small mail-order cars advertised in magazines. Small ads appeared in the back of Mechanix Illustrated, Popular Science, Better Homes and Garden, and other magazines offering "cars" for just a few hundred dollars.

The "Sport Car", a basic $295 15 MPH "Child's Sport Car" for two children powered by a 2 HP Briggs & Stratton engine, and the $395 25 MPH "Adult Sport Car" for one adult which featured the three-horsepower Briggs & Stratton engine, battery-operated head and tail lamps, but no charging system for the battery, seat-cushion upholstery, and trademark chrome "rocket" emblems on its sides.

A factory brochure advertised 70 MPG fuel consumption and claimed the car was Ideal for short trips. When it's too far to walk—to the shopping center, to the beach, to work—this little car is the perfect 'runabout'. Even the children can use it about your property. It's so easy to operate and sturdily built. Add an Eshelman trailer cart and it's perfect for hauling and light delivery.

Early models had belt drive to a simple lever-operated forward/reverse friction  transmission between the rear wheels. This transmission was under the bench seat, and drove power to serrated, cast iron "gears" which drove the wheels through friction to the 2.25x10 semi-pneumatic tire treads. Braking was done by reversing the transmission. This system resulted in heavy tire wear and was soon replaced by a drive belt from an engine-mounted centrifugal clutch to a jackshaft under the seat, and chain drive to sprockets on one rear wheel. The new brake system used paddles to the rear tire treads to stop. Even vice president Richard M. Nixon had an Eshelman connection in 1955 when he was photographed at a gasoline pump "fueling" a Child's Sport Car in a March of Dimes "Fill 'Er Up for Polio" publicity campaign while holding the pump nozzle at the car's rear (most Eshelman cars were fueled under the hood).

Though he was a dreamer. he realized the majority of his income came from selling lawn tractors and gardening apparatus so he got his head out of the sky and his feet back on dry land thinking of more practical vehicles like garden trucks and service carts.  1958 he landed a sizable contract to build three-wheeled delivery vehicles for the U.S. Postal Service.

In 1965 Eshelman began selling "real" cars, 2,400-pound, six-cylinder engine cars named the Golden Eagle. Regrettably these cars already had another name: Corvair! He bought them in large quantities and changed the badging and trim including a gold-colored Eshelman insignia. General Motors promptly obtained a Cease-and-Desist order against Eshelman. He continued to market the appearance package for those who wished to apply them to their personal cars. Corvair connoisseurs consider the Golden Eagle to be the most collectable models ever produced.

His last hurrah was the marketing of his patented "crash absorber," a pioneering 15 mph energy-absorbing front bumper fashioned from a vehicle's spare tire. He often demonstrated the bumper by ramming his own car into retaining walls.

 

In 1967, Eshelman produced the final Eshelman Golden Eagle Safety Cars based on new 1967 Chevrolet Novas, all equipped with front "crash absorbers" sold through used-car dealerships.

Cheston L. Eshelman was one-of-a-kind. No one before or since built such colorful and unorthodox machines for the air, land and water. He died in 2004 at age 87, definitely having brought plenty of smiles to people’s faces with his creations.