Auto polo: a 1911 US motorsport using stripped Model Ts to play polo, popular through the 1920s before vehicle costs killed it.
Key Takeaways
Invented by Ford dealer Ralph Hankinson as a Model T publicity stunt; first major game drew 5,000 spectators in Wichita, July 1912.
Each team ran two cars with a belted driver and a malletman hanging off the side, hitting a basketball at 40 mph.
Damage was extreme: Hankinson’s teams logged 1,564 broken wheels, 538 burst tires, and 6 fully destroyed cars in 1924 alone.
Uninsurability killed the sport as much as cost – Lloyd’s of London refused to cover players.
Brief post-WWII Midwest resurgence; modern descendant is tuk tuk polo, active in Galle, Sri Lanka since 2016.
Hacker News Comment Review
Discussion focused on finding modern equivalents: commenters proposed electric scooter polo, then converged on Segway polo as the actual living successor sport.
