This is a 1962 McCulloch 200 go-kart that is powered by a pair of rear-mounted, two-stroke engines powering the rear wheels. Jimmie Yamane won the inaugural karting World Championship in 1959 driving a twin-engined McCulloch very much like this one.
Double-engined karts like this became popular in the 1960s and 1970s, as they offered a lot more power and speed than their single-engined counterparts, all with only a relatively minor weight penalty.
Go-karts like this have long provided an affordable entry point into motorsport for young and old alike.
Go-karts have long provided an affordable entry point into motorsport for young and old alike. In some respects, karting is the very foundation of modern motorsport as almost all professional drivers came up through the rough and tumble karting ranks, proving their mettle.
Go-karting as a sport started out with very simple tube frame designs, with no suspension, a single rear brake, and a single rear engine powering a solid axle. These early karts were cheap to build and cheap to buy, and perhaps predictably they became a national sensation, with racing leagues, championships, and dedicated karting race tracks springing up seemingly overnight from coast to coast.
The McCulloch Motors Corporation
McCulloch Motors Corporation was founded by Robert Paxton McCulloch during WWII in 1943 to manufacture small, simple two-stroke engines. By 1948 the company had released their first chainsaw design, powered by their own engine.
During the 1950s the company expanded, mass-producing target drone engines which were used to power the simple airborne drones that served as target practice for land (or sea) based gunners. Later in the 1950s the company would start Paxton Automotive and begin manufacturing automotive superchargers, some of which were used in the Ford Thunderbird, the Kaiser Manhattan, and the 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk.
By the end of the 1950s McCulloch executives had become aware of the new sport of go-karting, and they knew that many of their own two-stroke chainsaw motors were being used to power these karts. In 1959 they released their first “official” go-kart engine, the McCulloch MC-10.
The go-kart you see here is an original twin-engined 1962 McCulloch 200 that benefits from a recent restoration, including full rebuilds for both engines.
The first karting championships were held in Nassau in the Bahamas in 1959. The 50-mile championship-deciding race was won by Jimmie Yamane driving a bright yellow go-kart powered by twin McCulloch MC-10 engines.
McCulloch would remain one of the most important kart engine suppliers right through the 1960s and into the 1970s. Engines from the firm would power karts driven by many future world champs in a wide variety of motorsport genres, and today original McCulloch-powered karts from the period are highly-collectible.
Interestingly, McCulloch founder Robert Paxton McCulloch bought 3,353 acres on the east side of Lake Havasu in 1958 and founded Lake Havasu City, Arizona. He moved the company’s operations there as well as the employees, and had accommodation built for them.
In order to attract tourists and prospective buyers of residential lots in Lake Havasu City, McCulloch bought the London Bridge from the City of London, England in the 1960s. He had it moved and reassembled across the narrow Bridgewater Channel in Lake Havasu City. The bridge is still there to this day.
The 1962 McCulloch Go-Kart Shown Here
The go-kart you see here is an original twin-engined 1962 McCulloch 200 that benefits from a recent restoration, including full rebuilds for both engines.
The kart is finished in the Corvette-color Honduras Maroon Metallic and it has a matching two-tone seat with ample side bolsters, a polished floorpan, and a matching seat-back fuel tank. The McCulloch MC7 two-stroke engines each have a displacement of 6.05 cubic inches or 99cc.
These engines were rebuilt by Michael John and they’re fitted with chromed shrouds, McCulloch flat-back carburetors, VanTech intake manifolds, GEM starter pulleys, Reed 500 exhausts, and chromed velocity stacks.
It has a three-spoke steering wheel with a black grip, and chromed McCulloch-branded aluminum accelerator and brake pedals.
There is a single disc brake on the rear axle, and the kart rides on three-spoke 5″ magnesium wheels fitted with Vintage Speed bias-ply slick tires. It has a three-spoke steering wheel with a black grip, and chromed McCulloch-branded aluminum accelerator and brake pedals.
This unusual twin-engined go-kart is now being offered for sale out of Gilbert, Arizona on Bring a Trailer with a bill of sale. If you’d like to read more about it or place a bid you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Bring a Trailer
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.