Cushman Model 32: Homefront Mobility for the Military

(Author's Collection)

     The Cushman Motor Works began making scooters in 1936 and the U.S. military contracted Cushman to produce several models of scooters for both the Army and the Navy as a means to supplement cars and trucks as scooters were quieter, easier to maintain, less expensive to purchase, and did not consume as much petrol and oils. The most famous Cushman scooter was the air-droppable Airborne Model 53, the “Parascooter”, which was used primarily by the 82nd. and 101st. Airborne Divisions when they parachuted into combat during the commencement of D-Day. The Parascooter provided swift mobility for couriers to move messages between units and the Parascooter even had a trailer hitch to pull the M3A4 general purpose utility cart which allowed it to move supplies as well. Some 5,000 Parascooters were built and after the war, the majority remained in France and Germany.

     The Sergeant in the photograph, however, isn’t sitting on a Parascooter but instead, he is riding a Cushman Model 32. The Model 32 wasn’t meant for the battlefield and instead, it was used by both the Army and the Navy as courier vehicles and personal transportation on Army garrisons and facilities, military industrial complexes, and Navy bases and shipyards.

     Cushman did build a civilian version of the Parascooter, the Model 53-A, which was more comfortable and had less military esthetics. It was marketed following the end of World War II but sales were disappointing. In 1957, the Cushman Motor Works ceased to exist and was bought out by the Outboard Marine Company.