Art Ingels (sometimes misspelled as Ingles; May 14, 1918 - December 16, 1981) is known as 'the father of
karting'.
In 1956, while he was a race car builder at
Kurtis Kraft
Kurtis Kraft was an American designer and builder of race cars. The company built midget cars, quartermidgets, sports cars, sprint cars, Bonneville cars, and USAC Championship cars. It was founded by Frank Kurtis when he built his own midg ...
, a famous builder of
Indy race cars during the 1950s, he assembled the first
Go-Kart
A go-kart, also written as go-cart (often referred to as simply a kart), is a type of sports car, close wheeled car, open-wheel car or quadracycle. Go-karts come in all shapes and forms, from non-motorised models to high-performance racing ...
in history out of scrap metal and a surplus
West Bend Company The West Bend Company was a West Bend, Wisconsin, company from 1911 to 2001. The West Bend Company manufactured aluminum cookware and electrical appliances, but also made two-stroke cycle engines, including outboard boat motors. Art Ingels use ...
two-stroke
A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being completed in one revolution of ...
engine
An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy.
Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ...
. It was built in his two-car garage in
Echo Park, California, (now FIX Coffee Co), and was tested in the
Rose Bowl parking lot, where it gained hundreds of enthusiasts.
See also
*
List of people known as "father" or "mother" of something
References
External links
The first kart at Vintage Karts
American racing drivers
People from Echo Park, Los Angeles
Place of birth missing
1918 births
1981 deaths
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