In general, when you have a child, you want to do your level best to keep them alive. That’s a given, right? And, it should be said, you want to give them an opportunity to have fun and be a kid. This three-wheeled 125cc go kart from 1950 certainly prioritizes the latter over the former. If you buy this kart for your young kid, they’ll be around for a good time, but not a long time. I’d hazard to say it would be safer to put your five year old on an actual MV Agusta motorcycle than this go kart built from one.
But really, that’s what makes it so dang cool. You might remember a little go kart you had as a child. Did it have four wheels? Did it have a roll structure? Did it have an under-powered Briggs and Stratton engine? Absolutely it did, because that’s the kind of contraption that a kid can have fun with in a way that won’t end with a young parent picking out a casket.
Bonhams auction house has included this cute deathtrap from 1950 in its Paris sale happening at the end of the month, though is quite short on the details of the machine. With a pre-auction estimate of between 3,000 and 4,000 euro, it seems like a bit of a unique bargain in today’s collector market. A 1950 MV Agusta T2, upon which this doohickey is likely based, generally goes for a bit more than that. If you have an affinity for the brand, or Italian bikes in general, this is probably a cool addition to your stable. It looks far too small for me to ride, but if you’re the size of an average horse jockey, maybe you could even ride it around a little.
Tony Kart, the famed Italian go kart manufacturer, was founded in 1950, though company founder Antonio Bosio was fiddling with the things far earlier than that. Some of his early machines were also MV Agusta-powered. It’s possible — though not corroborated by the auction house or any formal documentation — that this three-wheeled machine is a product of Tony’s imagination.
Anyway, you should go buy this little guy when the auction goes live on January 31. You’d be doing me a big favor, because otherwise I might convince myself to buy it. I don’t have any kids, but that’s all the better anyway.