Police forces around the world welcomed the advent of motorised vehicles, and police used motorcycles and motor-tricycles from the earliest days of the 20th century. US Police forces favoured Harley-Davidson (above) and children had the opportunity to play with a wide variety of toy police vehicles, including miniature Harley Davidson police motor tricycles such as the Evans Jet Patrol, which boasted its own carryall compartment on the back.
1963 Evans Police Jet Patrol Trike
LENGTH: 34″
WIDTH: 16″
HEIGHT: 23″
Front wheel 12″
Rear wheels 10″
with solid tyres
The Jet Patrol was a popular tricycle for youngsters in the USA, and what was not to like? It had a rugged construction and thick solid rubber tyres to withstand the rigours of young ownership, a pretend engine, police markings, ‘car-like fenders’ …and a ‘carryall compartment with access door’.
Kids get a lot of satisfaction delivering stuff from one place to another in their junior size vehicle. I recall the boot compartment at the back of my tricycle as a young lad being a feature I enjoyed most, which I suppose might explain why I spend most of time as an adult transporting bicycles and things around in a van.
As you can see, the trike is quite weathered with age – ‘patina’ as antique dealers describe it – being in original unrestored condition with its decals intact. I like the DRIVE SAFELY decal on the back.
1963 EVANS CATALOGUE EXTRACT
EVANS PRODUCTS Co
Plymouth Michigan
Evans Products Company was one of the most successful 20th century American wood products corporations. Their largest, most innovative, and most important west coast plant was located at Coos Bay, Oregon, from 1928 to 1962.
The company founder, Edward Steptoe Evans, was a self-made man who had worked as a printer, a store clerk, a cowhand, a librarian, and an author when finally, at age thirty-five, he developed a product that made him a fortune. In 1915, he created the “Evans Block,” a small wooden device that made loading and shipping automobiles by rail more efficient. Evans’s involvement in the car industry led him naturally to produce another product for the automobile: battery separators. Dozens of thin shields were needed to separate the numerous positive and negative plates inside storage batteries while allowing for the flow of the battery acids. Evans’s research and development personnel found that Port Orford cedar was an ideal material for these separators. Evans opened a manufacturing plant on Coos Bay in 1928 near the convergence of the Coalbank and Isthmus Sloughs in order to be near the best stands of Port Orford cedar. At various times, Evans Products operations were also located in Gold Beach, Lebanon, Corvallis, Winchester, and Portland. With the onset of World War II, battery separators for military vehicles, tanks, and submarines were in high demand, and the Coos Bay plant produced over 500 million separators in 1942 alone. The heyday of operations was in the early 1950s when over 1,000 laborers with an annual payroll of over three million dollars found work at the Coos Bay plant.
The Evans Company had a reputation for innovation and diversification. Besides battery separators, it produced railroad ties, fence posts, and broom sticks in the 1930s. It also was the leading producer of high quality Port Orford cedar Venetian blinds. Upon his father’s death in 1945, Edward S. Evans Jr. headed the company and continued with new product lines.
One interesting 1930s Evans Products Co design was the ‘Dual-Purpose Streamlined Auto-Railer’ of 1935. Apparently the company tried to buy the Washington, Baltimore & Annapolis Railway so they could operate 100 passenger-freight wagons.
COLSON-EVANS
Winslow Fay started his bicycle company in the late 1880s in Elyria, Ohio. The company produced a device to smooth out dirt roads in order to make them more bicycle friendly. Fay Manufacturing soon began producing tricycles under the ‘Fairy’ name.
In 1891, Fay sold his company to Arthur Garford, who subsequently hired Fred Colson as a salesman. Colson was responsible for the merging of the remnants of Worthington, Fay, and Fairy into one company in 1917. The new company – now named Colson – increased their range of children’s tricycles.
Colson was bought out by Evans Products Company of Plymouth, Michigan in 1953, at which point all their bikes were sold under the name Evans-Colson; the Colson name was removed entirely from their badges by 1959.
1960S GARTON SONDA TRAFFIC PATROL SCOOTER
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1960S GARTON SONDA TRAFFIC PATROL SCOOTER
PLEASE CLICK HERE
Evans history – http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/evans_products_company/#.Ve81sOkUZs4
