This is an original Rupp Monza go-kart, this series of karts was commissioned by General Motors and based closely on the styling of the elegant 1965 Chevrolet Monza SS concept car.
Monza go-karts were initially used as executive perks and promotional items before they entered full production, they remained on sale by Rupp into the 1970s. Surviving examples are now hugely collectible, and they often end up as display pieces due to their undeniable good-looks.
This is an original Rupp Monza go-kart, this series was commissioned by General Motors and based closely on the styling of the elegant 1965 Chevrolet Monza SS concept car.
History Speedrun: Rupp Go-Karts
Rupp Manufacturing started out back in 1959 in Mansfield, Ohio, when 23 year old ex-Marine Herbert “Mickey” Rupp stopped assembling other people’s go-karts and started building his own designs. He’d spent 1958 as a dealer for a California kart maker, welding up kits and selling them at a $50 profit, before designing a patented “step-frame” chassis that flexed more freely and helped hold the driver in the seat through corners.
Orders for his new kart design arrived faster than he could fill them, so he rented space in his father’s warehouse on Bowman Street (his father ran the Gorman-Rupp pump company) and then started production with eight employees.
Initially, the karts were sold under the Dart Kart name, and for a few years Mansfield was right at the center of American karting – a banked speedway was built behind the factory, and the Grand National Karting Championship was run there. Rupp himself raced at a higher level too, qualifying for the 1965 Indianapolis 500 as a rookie, and finishing 6th in a large field packed with talent.
When the karting boom began to fade, the company pivoted in order to stay alive. A small motorcycle Rupp had designed for hopping between pits at the Mid-Ohio circuit became the prototype for a minibike line launched in 1962, and snowmobiles followed in 1965.
By 1970 the renamed Rupp Industries had sales of $30 million USD and was building close to 70,000 minibikes and 35,000 snowmobiles a year – Elvis Presley owned one of its Centaur trikes. The company also developed one of the world’s first production quad bikes, long before the Japanese companies came along and dominated the industry.
A few poor snow seasons then sapped the snowmobile business, and in 1973 Mickey Rupp sold the struggling company to an investor group led by Joseph Hrudka. Sadly, it never recovered, and a Chapter 11 filing came in 1976, and the brand was gone after the 1978 model year.
This is the 1965 Chevrolet Monza SS concept car, it was an advanced design for the day, with a mid-engined Corvair flat-six sending power back to the rear transaxle. Image courtesy of General Motors.
The Rupp Monza Go-Kart
The Monza Go-Kart “Junior” was a factory-sanctioned collaboration between Rupp and General Motors, and it funnily enough started out as an executive perk. GM styling vice president Bill Mitchell wanted a scaled-down, drivable version of the 1965 Corvair Monza SS concept car for his stepson, so the GM Tech Center built one on a racing kart chassis, complete with a teak-rimmed wheel and full instrumentation.
The response to the one-off was overwhelmingly positive, enough so that GM approached Rupp in 1964 to mass-produce a version for Chevrolet’s promotional program, production began late that year, and Chevrolet received its first karts in early-1965.
Design Director Chuck Jordan later had one of the first production karts customized by GM Styling for his own son. The production version had a fiberglass Monza SS body with Rupp’s Dart kart chassis, a 3.5 bhp single-cylinder Lauson engine (Lauson was a Tecumseh subsidiary), a six-inch drum brake, and black Naugahyde upholstery, finished in red with silver rear panels.
Chevrolet raffled the karts off at auto shows, fairs, and dealer events during an initial exclusive period, after that first promotional year, Rupp was permitted to sell them directly, priced at $495 USD in 1966 (roughly $5,100 USD in today’s money). The top speed was around 25 mph, fast enough to get yourself into trouble.
The Rupp Monza you see here is finished in blue with white detailing over a black interior, it’s powered by a Tecumseh single-cylinder engine and it’s now being offered for sale out of Carlsbad, California.
The Monza Jr. lasted into 1967, when it was renamed the Chevy Jr. – versions of the Chevy Jr. continued in production into the 1970s, and survivors remain highly sought after by both kart enthusiasts and Corvair collectors.
The Rupp Monza you see here is finished in blue with white detailing over a black interior, it’s powered by a Tecumseh single-cylinder engine and it’s now being offered for sale out of Carlsbad, California. If you’d like to read more about it or place a bid you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Bring a Trailer
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
