Ok, that's informative. The only reason I would believe they were Bonham's is just due to the fact I live in Salt lake and I feel like these machines were made in Utah, maybe not SLC. My father acquired them a few years back from a guy out of Moab Utah, who had said he had spoke to Ralph Bonham's son in regards to these machines during a gote fest in Heber. He said when my father picked them up they had a badge of sorts on one, but may have fallen off.
When I look at these, and through the information that I have found on early gotes, they remind me of a module B, but modified. The way the seat sit, and the when I look at the tires, it just looks to me like there early 1960s models of something, whatever they are. And I just strikes me as odd that there would be four uniform machines, minus one of them having a newer engine on them (Wich the original owner said he had done before my dad acquired them). I know that there was also a company out of Ogden Utah, that had produced Gotes in the early 60's, the man who started the company worked for Bonham and split off and created his company, apparently stealing some of Bonham's designs. And I wonder if that may have been where they were created as well. I only feel like they were manufactured for mass production just due to the fact that there is four that are almost identical. I have wondered if they were created for the forestry department, and or maybe digging in sand like what's in Moab, just due to the way that they're built. I know that early machines did not have eight horsepower engines, well at least as far as I've researched. When I look at them, as a simplified machine, they do look like Bonham's or like I said the Model B's. One of them does have a plate above the rear wheel fender, however it's been painted over, so I feel like maybe I will put some pink lacquer to it and see if there may be identifying numbers underneath the blue paint. Two of the machines look like they have been painted after the other two, so I feel like they have been worked on as a restoration project somewhere along the lines, obviously since what I feel is that the horsepower engine was not in them at that time.
Richard Trotter, I feel like you are very well versed man in these machines, so the input that you give me is in high consideration about the makers and where they're from. I started my journey looking at all of these gotes online in FB groups, and Richard, I know I have seen your name in the groups. I really wish that I was able to restore these as a project of my own, however I am a caretaker for my father and 82 year old aunt also three other elderly people that are neighbors of ours, so I am having to let go of a few of the projects my father had, just because I'm not a paid employee from my relatives....lol..... At least not on government payroll, I'm not sure if room and board counts. My father said that he is not able to restore these as he wanted to do that with his grandkids, however none of his grandkids are either interested or near where we live in salt lake, my children live in Sacramento and I know they would love to do something with these, however they are there not here.
Any other input from anybody else would be highly appreciated. Again I'm willing to let go of these as a group, I would love to have one person fix all four up because they came to us as a group and I feel like they should go wherever their new destination as as a group.
