The Cushman Golf Buggy originated in1949, by a golfer at the River Oaks Golf Club in Houston. He had Arthritis and had convinced the club to allow him an exemption from walking. They gave it to him and he converted a 1949 Series 60 Package Car, calling it the Arthritis Special. The local Cushman dealer bought the rights and started producing them for the flood of others wanting the same exemption. As he was gearing us to go National, there was a revolt from other golfers saying they were too loud, and stirred up too much dirt & dust. That was the end of the scooter based Golf Buggy, but the beginning of the electric golf cart.
After having the acquisition of a rare golf buggy on my bucket list, In the Spring of this year I caught word of this one in North Central Texas. It turns out to have been the first produced by the Cushman Dealer. Serial number 1111.
I was able to purchase the non-running and rough golf buggy for $1800 and brought it home. No one knew how many decades had gone by since it had last ran. My intention was to someday restore, but I have dozens of car projects in line in front of it, and so I half-heatedly put a $10K (I had no idea on the actual value of it as so few were made and a handful are known to still exist) price tag on it and offered for sale. A museum in Rhode Island bought in in less than a week for the $10K.
Sometimes you get lucky.
