A dancing Buick: Roy Repp and Maude the Motor Mule

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It seems that the stunt car is almost as old as the car itself! Our recent posting of a 1922 film clip showing the early stunt car of what may well have been a traveling show (click here) brought forth some further stunt car heritage.

This great series of photographs comes from the Library of Congress archive and shows a gentleman named Roy Repp with his stunt car, known as Maude the Motor Mule. Repp may well have been one of the earliest stunt drivers.

The pictures were taken in New York and appeared in a 1916 issue of Popular Science magazine. From that we learn that Repp’s Motor Mule was a modified Buick of his own design. The tricks he performed with it were made possible by some clever modifications. The car could “stand up on its back two wheels” thanks to a sliding weight inside and independent brakes on each rear wheel. By pulling a lever, Repp would shift the centre of gravity to the rear of the car, making it possible to “pull a wheelie” on either its front or back wheels. From the report: “The band usually plays a waltz for this and the driver manages to keep in time with the music.” Oh yes, Repp could make Maude the Motor Mule dance!

After his stunt-driving career, Roy Repp became a flagman at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and, keeping up with the traveling show theme, “at thousands of IMCA races across the country.” But that’s where things also went wrong. During one of these races, held at the Shreveport Fairgrounds in Louisiana on 29 October 1933, a wing nut came off the wheel of a speeding race car, striking flagman Repp. He died three months later, on 4 January 1934, in hospital.

Words: Jeroen Booij
Pictures: Library of Congress

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