Fred Puhn and the Santee SS.
By Fred Puhn
All photos courtesy Fred Puhn
I was born in 1939; my childhood was spent in a country environment near Lakeside California. We lived on a dirt road and played outdoors most of the year. A big activity was the design, construction, and driving of “coasters” (gravity powered race cars). Not having much money, we scrounged materials such as old shopping cart or wagon wheels, scrap lumber, and old bolts and nails. Our coasters ranged from very nice to very crude, and we spent many weekends and summers riding down hills, crashing, and rebuilding. I learned how to throw a coaster sideways in the dirt to stop it because they never had any brakes. It was during these early years I learned to control a vehicle and to design and build one.