---
title: "It’s Time For Motor Polo to Make a Comeback"
description: "“All the dangers and excitement of a bullfight, a football game and a ride in an aeroplane.” Perfect."
date: "2015-10-08"
modified: "2015-10-08"
authors:
  - name: "Max Prince"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/max-prince"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/vintage/434/its-time-for-motor-polo-to-make-a-comeback"
categories:
  - "News"
---

# It’s Time For Motor Polo to Make a Comeback

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/archive-images/motorpolo_hero.jpg>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

In its infancy, people figured the automobile a kind of plug-and-play replacement for horses. It was not. Here, we bring the ensuing calamity to your attention: Meet motor polo, which is exactly what it sounds like.

![motorpolo\_art\_1.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/motorpolo_art_1.jpg>)
**Buyenlarge/Getty**

The first mention of motor polo appears around 1902. Within a decade, the sport had grown enough to merit a feature story by R.H. Morrison in *Technical World Magazine*, which outlined the game in fantastic detail. Four periods, ten minutes each. A 1,100-foot-long field, goalposts at each end, set 60 feet apart. The rules are described as follows:

*“Four stripped cars are used, each carrying a driver and a mallet man. On the forward cars, which did most of the playing, the seats were removed, leaving one small seat for the driver. A taped post served for the mallet man or “jockey” to swing on while he wielded his heavy mallet from the running board of the car. The goal-tending autos simply maneuvered bear their points of defense, taking no part in the battling in the middle of the field. An air-filled ball, about the size of an ordinary basketball, was used, and practically the same rules that govern ordinary polo obtained.”*

According to Morrison, this combined “all the dangers and excitement of a bullfight, a football game and a ride in an aeroplane.” From the opening punt, play generally devolved into a game of chicken. Stopping short and turning not being the early automobile’s strong suit, a lot of players were thrown from a car at 40 mph. Most of them even lived.

![motorpolo\_art\_2.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/motorpolo_art_2.jpg>)

During the early Twenties, motor polo matches were commonplace in New York and Chicago; by the Thirties, growing concerns over costs and safety led to widespread abandonment of the sport.

Translation: For nearly a century, we’ve been robbed of our opportunity to play motor polo. That’s egregious, and *The Drive* won’t stand for it.

Bring back motor polo, we say. Bring it back with Eighties jalopies and modern equipment, a swarm of stripped Plymouth Reliants and Chevy Berettas, chariots for men of strength and valor. Gambling and drinking encouraged; once-per-period fisticuffs mandatory. *Jock Jams Volume IV*, and only *Volume IV*, on repeat from two-story-tall speakers. Pads? Leather, if at all. Hell, we’ll even host the first match, and spring for sawdust to address spilled fluids, automotive or otherwise. Who’s with us?

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://twitter.com/themaxprince>)