Rare ebay find: WWll era Taipei city pedicab

This is pretty cool, a WWII era Taipei Rickshaw of ebay. Starting bid is US$4250.




















I sent an email to the Taipei City Cultural Affairs department about a week ago with this find, but I’m 99.999999% certain they deleted my message as useless spam. The bidding looks like it is closed now so if they didn’t make a move, it’s their loss.

Note: Although rickshaws/pedicabs wouldn’t work in modern Taipei due to traffic conditions and lack of AC, there is still one place that a pedicab service would be useful - taking people from the Taipei City Hall MRT station to Warner village. I gave it some thought as a side biz and even looked into a few companies offering vehicles, but licensing and only very small ROI make the idea only a passing though. Using the vintage pedicabs would have been a bonus and probably would have yeilded some advertisment $. Also, since no one else is doing this, free media exposure by the local rags would be a given. (plus rental to wedding shops, etc.). There is another pedicab from Indonesia for sale on ebay here: pedicab2 Add link: Rickshaw forums. I copied all these images to my vintage photo collection in case the link goes offline. www.initechnology.com/taipics (rickshaws_pedicabs folder)

The owner of a guesthouse I stayed in at Meinung had a couple of those completely restored that you could take out and about. Very nice indeed. Cost him around NT$4,000 – not US$4,000!
It’s not at all uncommon to come across unrestored ones though – I’ve found several over the years – and there’s at least one place that restores them, probably more.

That’s FAB! I’d love to go in one of those.

i know of one for sale out in an antique shop past tamsui…boss was asking NT$40,000. pretty good nick.

On one hand the asking price is a bit steep; On the other, more and more Taiwanese are realizing the value of these types of cultural artifacts and are slowing buying up what is available. I think $4K from the city government is really nothing to purchase such a cool piece of restored history/art. (~ considering all the other money wasted on other things such as the $6 million on the Nanjing W. Rd foodcourt, the security costs for meaningless demostrations, etc. etc. The photo below was flinched from Michael Turtons’s 1956 Grolier World Countries Guide post.

Here are a couple of photos taken in Sanxia a few months back. I took the photos in the Minquan Old Street. They were shooting a television drama set in WWII, so I guess the rickshaw was bought in just for the occassion.

This rickshaw looks like it was made post-WWII unless those plaques on the vehicle were put there by restorers. I’m pretty sure that the Japanese did not have street names like “Roosevelt Road” and “Nanjing Road West”.

I just saw your 2006 posting on the WWII era Rickshaw / Pedicab.
I couldn’t see the pictures.
Are they located in another website??
I just acquired a Pedicab & was looking for pictures of a similar one so I know how to restore it.

Ken Minnesota…USA

[quote=“kdroy”]I just saw your 2006 posting on the WWII era Rickshaw / Pedicab.
I couldn’t see the pictures.
Are they located in another website??
I just acquired a Pedicab & was looking for pictures of a similar one so I know how to restore it.

Ken Minnesota…USA[/quote]

There’s a site that appears to be related to the expired site, and it has some pedicab pics. I don’t know if they’re the same ones that were on the expired site in 2006, but anyway, they’re located here: taipics.com/pedicabs

Hi…
I’m Ken Roy from St. Paul, MN.
Last year I aquired a rickshaw / pedicab like the ‘WWll era Taipei city pedicab’
It was in rough shape, so I decided to restore it.
I don’t know much about it, but am looking for any history, info or parts for it. I’m assuming it’s a late 40’s early 50’s model from Taipei.
I’m not sure how this forum works or how to attach a picture.
If someone wants to email directly, do I have to put my email address in this posting? I’m hoping to have my restoration done by June 01, 2009.

Hi, Ken.

Yes, you’re welcome to add photos – we’d love to see them! – of your rickshaw. You’ll have to put them online somewhere else first, though, using a site such as Imageshack.

You needn’t add your e-mail address to a post. Instead you can invite people to send you a personal message (PM) through this site.

For information on repair/parts/history/etc, you might try the links at the NYC Pedicab Owners’ Association.

Good luck, and please let us know if you succeed in restoring your find.