Cushman's management team simply crushed Northrop's team in head to head competition. Cushman had a great game plan for the immediate post war period - mass produce affordable transportation for young adults and returning veterans. New car production took a number of years to ramp up, and Cushman took great advantage of the pent up demand for transportation.

Salsbury Motors, on the other hand, did not seize the moment when the war ended. Under Avion and Northrop's management, Salsbury Motors first spend time perfecting a 6HP motor when according to Foster a perfectly good motor was already being produced by a third party. Then, starting in early 1946, Salsbury Motors built a manufacturing facility in Pomona to produce the engines and scooters. Salsbury Motors did not start actually making engines and scooters until mid-1946, one year after the war ended, and well after Cushman started selling scooters to everybody who wanted one. Even worse, Salsbury evidently experienced significant manufacturing issues, as Salsbury did not start producing engines and scooters in volume until February or March 1947. Cushman had a HUGE head start by the time Salsbury started to crank out scooters, as evidenced by the great pic above showing 10 Cushmans lined up outside of a Tulsa High School (the photographer took some pics of a single Salsbury later on).

Notwithstanding Cushman's huge early advantage, the Salsbury Model 85 was a GREAT scooter. Wonderfully advanced design, robust engine, and the fantastic variable speed transmission. The demand was there. Once Salsbury worked out the manufacturing issues, Salsbury started to produce scooters in quantity. Salsbury looked to be on a roll….

The best evidence supporting the production of approximately 6500 Model 85s is found in the SRS Membership roster. The roster includes both frame and engine serial numbers to the extent submitted by owners. The roster reflects an approximately 6500 spread in frame numbers (5000 to 11,500), then a meaningful gap (only 1 scooter between 12,000 and 14,000, and the one could be a mistake), and then starts back up again in the 14,000s but with the addition of a "-S" at the end of the frame number about 80% of the time.

Since Foster Salsbury had pegged the production of Model 85s between 700 to 1000 at one point, the SRS apparently accepted that range and concluded (without being convinced perhaps) that Salsbury Motors used non-consecutive serial numbers on the frames of the Model 85s. All the data we have come across indicates that Salsbury Motors almost certainly used consecutive serial numbers on the frames, which would peg the 1947 production at roughly 6500 scooters. The fact that the SRS uncovered a 1992 interview with Foster where Foster pegged Model 85 sales at 3000+ and production at 10 to 15 scooters a day should make it easier to conclude that Salsbury Motors consecutively numbered the Model 85 frame numbers.

Here are the Key Data Points Related to Production:

1. Salsbury Likely Only Produced 500 to 750 scooters in 1946

Salsbury Motors got off to a ridiculously slow start producing scooters and engines. In the 1992 interview, Foster claimed that the engine was the hang-up - too many specially designed cast parts. Based on the photo dated Nov 1945 showing a pre-production Model 85, Salsbury Motors had the design for the Model 85 pretty much finished by Nov 1945. Salsbury Motors started construction on its Pomona manufacturing plant in February 1946, and finished sometime in June or July 1946. Thus, you would expect Salsbury Motors to start pumping out scooters, 6HP engines and the automatic drives starting in mid-1946. But that didn't happen.

Northrop's Annual Report for its fiscal year ending July 31, 1946 stated: "As was the case with almost all automotive manufacturers, Salsbury production was delayed several months because of lack of parts due to strikes in suppliers' plans in the first half of the year….At the present time, many of these production difficulties have been overcome and Salsbury is now in production. So, according to the annual report, Salsbury was in production in July 1946 and thereafter. An article in the LA Times dated July 7, 1946 confirms this - stating that two LA dealers have Model 85s (Standard and DeLuxe) on display in their showrooms.

SRS membership records indicate that Salsbury Motors produced some Model 85s with frame serial numbers under 5000. At some point Salsbury Motors likely started numbering the Model 85 frames starting at 5000. SRS records indicate that serial #523x was titled on Nov 16, 1946, and that serial number 533x had an original receipt date of Dec 4, 1946. Several big dealers advertised in Dec 1946 that they have Model 85s - Schubert's in Hawaii and Diesel Motor in AZ.

Based on an article in the LA Times on Dec 6, 1946, we also know that Salsbury shut down its plant in early December because of a coal strike and freight embargo on the east coast. The article also mentions that Salsbury Motors employed 400 people at its Pomona facility in Dec 1946. That's a lot of employees given the relatively few number of scooters and engines being made in 1946.


2. Salsbury Ramped Up Production VERY Significantly in 1947 - to 65 Model 85s PER DAY

Contrary to Foster's recollection that Salsbury only made 10 to 15 Model 85s per made, we found two press accounts documenting a much higher level of production per day. The press accounts are shown in their entirety below:

Here's the math on a VERY conservative basis (start with 15 scooters per day production, and then increases in production only occur on date of article):

15 scooters per day X 85 work days (Jan 6 to May 2, 1947) = 1275 scooters

35 scooters per day X 54 work days (May 5 to July 18) = 1890 scooters

60 scooters per day X 23 work days (July 21 to Aug 20) = 1385

Which means that Salsbury Motors likely manufactured at least 4660 Model 85s from Jan thru the bankruptcy filing on Aug 20, 1947. If you add in the 500 or more Model 85s made in 1946, you are looking at a MINIMUM of 5100 Model 85s made by Salsbury Motors from 1946 thru August 1947. If the SRS membership frame serial number data shows a spread of 6500 scooters (from serial numbers 5000 to 11,500), we believe that Salsbury Motors frame serial numbers were consecutively numbered, and that Salsbury Motors manufactured 6500 scooters with serial numbers from 5000 to 11,500 plus hundreds more with serial numbers before 5000.

3. Bankruptcy Filing August 20, 1947. Receiver Appointed Sept 9, 1947. Bankruptcy Sale Feb 9, 1948.

SRS Magazine #58, May 2017, contains some very helpful information regarding what happened financially after Salsbury Motors filed for voluntary bankruptcy on August 20, 1947. According to an announcement the bankruptcy receiver published in a Pomona paper, Salsbury Motors sales for Jan thru July 1947 were $2.16M, and the receiver sold approximately $300,000 from Sept 1947 thru Feb 1948. The $2.16M of receipts s suggests that around 5000 to 5500 Model 85s were sold to dealers (at roughly $300 per scooter, for total scooter receipts of $1.5M to $1.65M)), with significant sales of stand alone motors and items making up the remainder.

The $300,000 of sales generated by the receiver was probably based on sales to Polodor Motors in LA. Polodor was running ads daily in the LA Times offering new Salsbury scooters for $297.50 each. Here's an advertisement dated Jan 8, 1948 - during the receivership. Of the $300,000, we don't know how many scooters versus engines and other things the receiver sold. But it wouldn't surprise us if the receiver sold another 1000 Model 85s (at $150 to $200 each would be $150,000 to $200,000) or so from Sept 1947 to Feb 1948 to help generate that $300,000 of sales.

So, our best guess is that Salsbury Motors:

(1) Manufactured approximately 6500 Model 85's from the start of operations in mid 1946 until filing for bankruptcy in Aug 1947

(2) Sold approximately 500 Model 85s in 1946

(3) Sold approximately 5000 to 5500 Model 85's in 1947

(4) Filed for bankruptcy with approximately 1000 fully assembled Model 85s in inventory (3 weeks worth of production)