Floyd Clymer: One of Indiana's Motorcycling Pioneers

On this day, January 23, 1970, Floyd Clymer, a true pioneer in the sport of motorcycling died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California at the age of 74. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Clymer was a motorcycle racer, a motorcycle dealer, distributor, inventor, promoter, importer, editor and publisher, was a true American original. 

Floyd Clymer astride a Harley-Davidson Motorcycle 

Clymer was a clean-living teetotaler who never smoked, always wore a business suit and started what was once the biggest automotive publishing organization in the world, Clymer Repair Manuals. The Clymer manual became shorthand among home mechanics as a useful guide to vehicle maintenance and repair. 

His motorcycle obsession started early. 

Clymer was a scintillatingly fast dirt-tracker who could run on pure adrenaline, a wild and crazy guy on a motorcycle to the very end, a businessman who loved the limelight, a master at promoting the image of motorcycling. 

A boy wonder operating his own auto sales agency before he was in his teens, young Floyd sold 26 Maxwell, REO and Cadillac cars in two years. He did this in 1904, at the age of 10 from a tiny, catalog-filled office next to his father’s doctors office in Berthoud, Colorado to which his father, a country physician, had moved the family after Floyd was born in Indianapolis. 

President Theodore Roosevelt declared him “The World’s Youngest Automobile Dealer.” 

As a teenager, Clymer lost the bulk of his hard-earned profits by investing in a now-forgotten motorcycle called the Thomas Auto-Bi. Clymer was captivated by the motorcycle's “Next to Flying” ad slogan, although the snail-like and unreliable Auto-Bi impressed nobody else but him. Clymer’s investment was worthless. 

By then, Clymer had discovered motorcycles and he knew right away that he was hooked. Noticing his skill and cunning, Harley-Davidson telegraphed for Clymer to enter the 1916 Dodge City 300-mile race as replacement for injured star rider Otto Walker.

Floyd Clymer's Historical Motor Scrapbook

In 110 degree heat, on an unfamiliar, ill-handling machine that “packed a lot of dynamite” into its 61 cubic inches, Clymer set fastest lap in practice, and in the race led Harley factory rider Irving Janke around the dusty horse track, both riders mounted on the potent four-valve Twins. 

After setting two new world records-83 miles in the first hour, 100 miles in 71 minutes, Clymer blew a tire at nearly 100 mph, headed into the pits, then got back on track and blazed into the lead again, until a broken valve sidelined him at the 218th mile. 

By 1916 he had become a member of the Harley-Davidson factory team. Clymer set a world 100-mile record that same year, in addition to a Pikes Peak record, but was eventually forced out of competitive motorcycle riding by a back injury. Clymer, undaunted, turned to promoting AMA motorcycle races in the Midwest and elsewhere. 

Sometime in the mid-1940's, Clymer, perhaps unknowingly, created a new genre of journalism. He put together a selection of photos, text, statistics, and articles on old cars first published when they were new into a single, thematically chaotic volume called Floyd Clymer's Historical Motor Scrapbook. 

Clymer’s last great crusade was trying to resurrect the Indian motorcycle. 

Clymer attempted to purchase the Indian motorcycle brand in the 1950's, and was successful in buying it in the early 1960's. By 1967, he had begun distribution of Indian-branded minicycles, using names such as Papoose, Ponybike and Boy Racer. While his minicycle line continued, and expanded, into the 1970s, the realization of these full-sized Indian cycles came to a halt when Clymer died. 

On This Date, October, 3, 1894

On this date, October 3, 1894, Edward J Pennington of Moores Hill, Indiana, applied for a patent for his "Motor Vehicle", notable for its balloon tires. Pennington built and demonstrated his original motorcycle design in Milwaukee in 1895.

 

Pennington submitted two documents detailing his versions of early motorcycles and he was awarded a patent for the "Motor Vehicle (motorcycle) with patent number; 574262 issued December 29, 1896. The most interesting note is the fact that the term “motor cycle” is traced to these documents and exact year.

Learn more about Edward J Pennington HERE

Edward J Pennington

Edward Joel Pennington was born in Moore’s Hill, Indiana in 1858. Although he didn’t stay in Indiana for very long, his early years in the state shaped him to automobile and motorcycle fame as well as equal infamy. Prior to moving to other parts of the Midwest and eventually Great Britain, E.J. Pennington first developed his ambitious and amazing skill at social engineering in various small Hoosier towns, where he conned people into investing in dud companies.

Despite his incredibly checkered past, Edward Joel Pennington had a passion for machines, going as far as having more than two dozen patents. He tinkered in engines and devices, even applying for some of the earliest motorcycle and automotive patents in the nation.

 

On October 3, 1894 Pennington submitted two documents detailing his versions of early motorcycles and he was awarded a patent for the "Motor Vehicle (motorcycle) with patent number; 574262 issued December 29, 1896. The most interesting note is the fact that the term “motor cycle” is traced to these documents and exact year. 

Both documents declared Pennington as the assignor for the “Motor Cycle Company of Chicago.” Although the word originally appeared as a company designation, Pennington also promoted the term to encompass cycles with motors.

He showcased his motorcycle prototypes at various exhibitions in places such as Chicago and New York around 1895 to garner interest for investment opportunities in more dud companies.

 

Drawing accompanying Edward J. Pennington's patent for a "Motor-Vehicle" (Motorcycle) Patent number: 574262, filing date: October 3, 1894, Issue date: December 29, 1896. SOURCE: Wikipedia

It was Pennington’s testing and showcasing of the prototypes around that time in Milwaukee that had caught the eye of William Harley and Arthur Davidson, who would later on found the Harley-Davidson motorcycle company. 

They weren’t the only ones who were captivated by Pennington’s show of future potential. Henry Ford himself was also taken in by Pennington’s automotive ambitions, going so far as to later create an engine that looked similar to Pennington’s own, but mechanically more sound.

E.J. Pennington’s name was well known in early automotive and motorcycle circles due to his amazing promotional capabilities and often publicized his latest ventures in numerous papers. That fact is incredibly well documented in mechanics, patent, industrial, automobile and bicycle periodicals of its day. Even though his engineering skills were pretty questionable at best- doing what needed to be done in order to make pitches to investors, many marveled and admired his tenacity to be a visionary.

 

Drawing accompanying Edward J. Pennington's patent for a "Motor-Vehicle" (Motorcycle) Patent number: 574262, filing date: October 3, 1894, Issue date: December 29, 1896. SOURCE: Wikipedia 

His enthusiasm for motorized vehicles no matter how shoddy his personal skills gave birth to automobiles and motorcycles that we know today. His death in 1911 was reported by dozens of periodicals and even though he was known as a charlatan and a swindler, his contributions to sparking the imagination and ambitions of many in the industry were well received. Source: Hannah at Imchs.org