Foster hit a homerun when he introduced the 1937 Aero model. Great looks, 4 cycle engine (no mixing of gas and oil), easier to start and a 25% price drop compared to the Original Motor Glide. The 1937 Aero turned into a nationwide fad - celebrities owned them, people raced them, and rental shops opened up in numerous cities across the country. The banner picture above, for example, shows a bunch of gals on 1937 Aero's. In some places, riding a scooter was called "gliding." And newspapers sometimes used the terms Motor Glide and scooter interchangeably.

Great Question. Nobody knows. The conventional wisdom is that Foster sold maybe 300 or so 1937 Aero's. We think that number is way too low. Looking at all the newspaper articles, letters exchanged with Roscoe, the available financial info, and the known serial numbers of 1937 Aero's, we suspect Foster sold more than 1000 Aero's in 1937. The Aero was THE BREAKTHROUGH scooter - reasonable price combined with great looks and performance.

In early March 1937, Foster told Roscoe that:

"I hope to have the first one hundred Motor Glides completed by the end of the week and we are putting through a run of 250 which should be completed by the end of the month. From the present indications we can sell somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 machines this year providing we can produce them fast enough. This new model with the fully enclosed four cycle motor, low price and simplicity of controls, etc, is making a tremendous hit. Just in the last few days machines have been sold to P.K. Wrigley, W.K. Vanderbilt, Robert Taylor and Amos an' Andy."

We note that Paulette Goddard, a famous 1930's and 40's actress, loved her 1937 Aero. So much so that she purchased 13 other scooters so that she could throw scooter parties. See Paulette's Salsbury Aero story here.

The Salsbury Restorer's Society only lists 5 known 1937 Aeros, with only 2 of the 5 reflecting serial numbers. One serial number is 37A20 and the other is 37A937, for a 917 difference.

When you look at the pics and newspaper accounts below, you will see a very significant number of different Aero's. And those can only be a small percentage of the total that were actually sold.

The 1937 Aero understandably cannibalized sales of the 1937 DeLuxe Motor Glide, which was priced $25 to $30 higher than the Aero. While the DeLuxe had a bit more horsepower, the cost of the engine was main reason for the significant price difference between the Aero and DeLuxe. Foster paid Johnson approximately $19 per engine for the 4 cycle motor that went into the Aero with the enclosed motor. Foster paid Eventide approximately $40 per engine for the 2 cycle motor that went into the DeLuxe with the unenclosed motor. We suspect Foster did not make many DeLuxe models once he ramped up production of the Aero.

Foster saw many possible commercial uses of the Aero - police work like parking control, deliveries of mail, newspapers and telegrams, delivery of cars by car dealers (by using the cycletow the dealer could ride back to his place on the Aero), fast transportation on airfields, movie studios and warehouses. As the pictures from Foster's scrapbooks show, Foster successfully marketed Aero's for some of these uses.

Foster's Scrapbook contained a great number of articles regarding the 1937 Aero, which was a breakthrough model from a styling perspective, and really caught the attention of the Hollywood types. Almost all of the articles are from 1937.