Allstate Moped

Back in my childhood days of The Fifties, I would grab up every new Sears & Roebuck catalog that arrived in my family's mailbox moments after the postman drove away. Of course this was the era in which the Sears catalog was every young man's visual access to bras and panties, so of course I had to peruse those first, even if they were in stunning black and white. As soon as I left the B's and the P's in the index, the M's offered my next fantasy, the Allstate motorcycle pages. I am not sure how many years the Allstate Moped was produced by Puch and sold by Sears, but it could have been as wide an era as 1954-69. Moped production covered at least the '55-'65 period, and probably a wider span than this. For a boy living out in the sticks, in my case, the town of North Carrollton, Mississippi, where McQueen went to appear in the movie The Reivers, the Allstate motorcycle catalog pages were the only contact with motorized two-wheelers available in those innocent years before Honda woke us all up and set the world on fire.

The moped pictured here is the 1960 model. Not only did I have a good quality shot of this year on hand, but this is sort of the pivotal year, the first full year of Honda importation into the U. S. For approximately a $100 more, the Honda 50 would provide a young man with a 4.5 horsepower four-stroke engine, a real foot shift, battery-powered lighting, and a dual seat. This was a moped, a slick derivative of a motorized bicycle, but the Honda 50 was a real motorcycle! The introduction of the Honda 50 would herald the swansong of the previous king of the entry-level, motorized two-wheelers for ambitious little boys.

For all the kids who wanted to stop the uphill pedaling before they passed out in the heat, the Allstate Moped was a twinkle in our eyes. How many lawns would we have to mow to pay for it? How could we convince our parents to let us have it? Exactly how much would shipping be to Bumfuzzle, Alabama, and could you please translate that amount into lawns?

See also: Allstate Compact
Allstate SR 125
Allstate Scrambler
Allstate History by Troyce Walls