Half bike, half car, all nuts

Meet Alfred Angas Scott, inventor of the kickstart, potholer and designer of race bikes so successful they had to be mathematically handicapped.

Born in 1875, he began by designing and developing two-stroke auxiliary and marine engines featuring a patented pawl-and-ratchet starting mechanism which in 1910 would make its motorcycle debut as the kickstart on Scott’s 450cc two-stroke twin.

Scott machines took TT lap records each year from 1911-14 and were soon deemed ‘too efficient’ to race in their own classes. Multiplying their capacity by a factor of 1.32 placed them more fairly against larger-capacity rivals, according to race organisers. In 1915 Scott left the company to concentrate on the Scott Sociable (above).

Half motorcycle, half car, it was powered by a 578cc two-stroke twin. While riding one home in 1923, drenched after a potholing expedition, Scott contracted the pneumonia that would kill him.

The Sociable soon fizzled out, while the Scott motorcycle company would continue with its Squirrels, Super Squirrels and Flying Squirrels before entering voluntary liquidation in 1950.