Auto Polo
en.wikipedia.org70 points by canjobear 3 days ago
70 points by canjobear 3 days ago
This photo is incredible
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Auto_pol...
I’m sure many of us are reminded immediately of the old Top Gear auto football matches:
"The official inventor of auto polo...devised the sport as a publicity stunt in 1911 to sell Model T cars."
Amazing to see how little has changed in 100 years when it comes to competing for attention
Unsurprisingly, it died out "mostly due to the high cost of replacing vehicles". Was it the inspiration for demolition derbies?
Bike Polo is still alive https://youtu.be/CBZgC7u6ji8 and for example https://youtu.be/PxMms5Yh_gI
Australian Motorcycle Chariot Race
These days I have to check the upload date to see if I'm being duped. At 8 years ago this one passes!
> though deaths due to auto polo were rare.
Oh well, then...
I guess the modern day equivalent (technology that’s relatively new, unsafe and unregulated) would be electric scooter polo? I found no sign of a sport like this though.
I think kick scooter polo exists. And bike polo[1] is well known.
My first thought was that Segways would be ideal for the nerdiest fun modern-ish recreation of polo. It turns out that it was a thing.
> The Segway polo world championship is the Woz Challenge Cup. It is named after Steve "Woz" Wozniak, cofounder of Apple Inc., and a player of Segway polo
WhirlyBall[1], which is kind of like pelota + basketball in bumper cars, seems like a pretty good bet. There are only a handful of courts left, but I've done a few offsites at the Seattle one, and it's good fun.
The bumper cars are truly weird - they draw power from the conductive floor of the court, and have a one-handed control system that makes you trigger forward/reverse by turning the steering wheel a full rotation...
There is also unicycle hockey! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicycle_hockey
Makes me want to dust off mine
Nope. The modern version uses motorcycles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motoball
>>Motoball is played in a 5v5 format. There are four players on motorcycles, and one on their feet as the goalkeeper.
Was? Not with this attitude!
