The Foster - Roscoe correspondence files shows a disagreement over what to name the scooter. Roscoe thought that the best way to cash in on Roscoe's fame and association with the scooter was to call the scooter the "Roscoe Turner" machine, so something that clearly identified the scooter with his name. By personalizing the scooter with his name, Roscoe thought it would make it more difficult for competitors (he was certainly referring to Cushman) to create an equivalent scooter. Foster thought the best course of action, however, was to create a "Salsbury Corporation" and go with the name "Motor Glide".

Hindsight shows that Roscoe might have been right. Cushman called its scooters "Auto Glides", no doubt trying trying to cash in on all the buzz around Salsbury's Motor Glides. As time went on, Cushman sold far more Auto Glides than Salsbury sold Motor Glides. As a result, according to his 1992 interview, Foster dropped the name Motor Glide altogether in the 1940s to avoid naming confusion. So Cushman essentially stole all of the PR and brand recognition that Foster had developed for the Motor Glide scooter.

Roscoe's files containing a couple of very interesting items regarding the potential profits relating to the rental and racing of Motor Glides.

Shortly after Foster introduced the Motor Glide in 1936, entrepreneurs figured that they could turn a profit from building a riding track and renting Motor Glides to people who wanted to ride and race. Four tracks were built around the Los Angeles area in mid-1936, and they apparently did extremely well. Foster dug into the economics of the rental track business and prepared a profitability analysis. Very profitable. Based on newspaper accounts, a number of entrepreneurs in other cities tried to build tracks as well, with a number of them being turned down by city councils for one reason or another. The rental and racing business faded from the scene pretty quickly apparently.

One of Foster's not so hot marketing ideas - creating the Roscoe Turner Motor Glide Club. Roscoe's files contain an interesting exchange of correspondence where Foster proposes the following in December 1936:

- A dealer creates the Roscoe Turner Motor Glide Club focused on boys and girls
- Roscoe will fly to and meet the Club when the Club hits 25 members (and present gold wings to the members)
- A kid can earn a free scooter if the kid generates 10 sales leads for the dealer

Foster follows up on this in a letter to Roscoe dated in May 1937, basically putting the matter to Roscoe.

Roscoe responded by telling Foster that he should talk to more dealers about the idea, and pointed out that it would be pretty expensive for Roscoe to fly into a city.

Foster's idea didn't make much sense from a business perspective, and suggests that Foster didn't fully appreciate the cost side of his innovative ideas (see the Company financial issues webpage for more on this). Here are the ballpark economics of Foster's idea:

- In 1936, Foster believed that his net sales profit on each Motor Glide was $16.40
- Foster's profit from a 25 scooter club would be $410
- Roscoe then flies into the city and presents gold wings to each kid (cost of the wings unknown - assume $1 each).

All of this looks ok, until you consider Roscoe's time and expenses. Roscoe's files contain a couple of expense reimbursement requests, and airplane gas wasn't cheap. Wouldn't be surprising at all if Roscoe's expenses came to $75 to $100 for a trip, and that doesn't reflect any payment for Roscoe's time.

We don't know if Foster pushed the Roscoe Turner Motor Glide Club idea after this exchange of correspondence.