The Doodle Bug was a

motor scooter A scooter (motor scooter) is a motorcycle with an underbone or step-through frame, a seat, and a platform for the rider's feet, emphasizing comfort and fuel economy. Elements of scooter design were present in some of the earliest motorcycl ...

built from 1946 to 1948 by the Beam Manufacturing Company of

Webster City, Iowa Webster City is a city in Hamilton County, Iowa, United States. The population was 7,825 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Hamilton County. Webster City is known as 'Boone River Country', as the Boone River meanders along the east side ...

, US. They were sold through the Gambles store chain to compete against Cushman scooters being sold under the

Allstate The Allstate Corporation is an American insurance company, headquartered in Northfield Township, Illinois, near Northbrook since 1967. Founded in 1931 as part of Sears, Roebuck and Co., it was spun off in 1993 but still partially owned by ...

brand by

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began ...

. Gambles sold the Doodle Bug under the "Hiawatha" name. Doodle Bugs were powered by 1½ hp engines from

Briggs & Stratton Briggs & Stratton Corporation is an American manufacturer of gasoline engines with headquarters in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. Engine production averages 10 million units per year as of April 2015. The company reports that it has 13 large facilit ...

or Clinton. The Doodle Bug Standard Model B was the only Doodle Bug series powered by Clinton engines; one thousand or less of these were built, all during the first production run of ten thousand scooters. All other Doodle Bug scooters, including the Standard Model A that was produced alongside the Model B during the first production run, used variants of the Briggs & Stratton NP engine. Four production runs of ten thousand scooters each were built. An annual reunion of Doodle Bug owners and restorers is held in Webster City.

References

External links

Doodle Bug Scooter
basic description with good pic
Doodle Bug Club of America
based in Webster City, Iowa Motor scooters {{Motorcycle-stub