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Three-Wheeled Cars

blessmycottonsocks said:
Don't recall that, but I enjoyed watching Jeremy Clarkson demonstrate what a poorly designed car the Robin Reliant was. Why the hell didn't they do the sensible thing and have the two wheels at the front?...
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This was faked; they buggered around with the differential.

Even the Clarkson thing held his hands up to it, eventually.

See here.
 
Spookdaddy said:
Starting back in the mid 80's and going on into the early 90's there seemed to be a bit of a thing around where I lived for boy racers nicking Reliant Robin's and going all Fast and Furious with them. It seems odd now, but I think it was a kudos thing – I think it was about outwitting the peelers in the unlikeliest car you could think of stealing to do such a thing.

There are at least three cases that I can recall. Unfortunately the one I remember best – and which would have happened around the mid 80’s - does not seem to be referenced online. It has stuck in my mind because the guy managed to get all the way to Hull - a journey of over 100 miles - with the police breathing down his neck the whole way. I remember my local paper reporting the incident interviewed a police spokesman who explained that the reason they hung back from stopping the guy was that he kept hiding round corners and trying to reverse into them. The word 'ambushing' was used.

Now, that really shouldn't be funny, because it was clearly dangerous. But it involves a Reliant Robin. And therefore, it is. (And it doesn't help that 'ambush' and 'Reliant Robin' seem so utterly incongruous when used in the same sentence.)

My grandfather, ex Royal Engineers, then an engineer with ICI, used to moonlight as a mechanic for a bit of extra cash, and used to tell this story: A neighbour once brought round his three wheeler for some attention (checking online I think it would have to have been the model before the Reliant Robin). At one time you could drive a three wheeled vehicle on a motorcycle license - but only if the reverse gear was disabled and blanked off.

"How the bloody hell do you reverse then?" Asked my grandad.

"The wife gets out and pushes; we keep a pair of my old boots in the footwell for when she does it."

It clearly did the lady in question no harm, as she outlived her husband by decades and lasted almost as long as my grandad - who died a few months shy of his century. He always referred to the lady as Mrs Reversi: I thought she was maybe Italian, and it was her real name - until I was told the story.
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Your mention of no reverse gear made me think of the crazy little "Bubble Car"

Apocryphal stories abound of people found trapped inside, after having parked too close to their garage back wall:

IMG_1079.JPG
 
escargot said:
Ooer, a Messerschmidt 3 wheeler featured in the regular Granada TV item 'Where's Fred?' in which the eponymous presenter would appear in various areas of northwest England.
Sadly, the likeable Fred turned out to be a predatory paedophile former teacher who had mercilessly abused the young teenage boys in his charge.

A neighbour of ours ran what was known as a 'Bubble Car' back in the day and he did indeed become trapped in his garage when it rolled forward. The story goes that he was there a couple of hours because his wife enjoyed the peace and quiet.

One of my exes owned a Bond Bug. They could be driven on a full motorbike licence and he was a biker so when he was offered one he snapped it up.
Not a pleasant ride! You could take the top off on hot days but you'd need to wear a scarf over your face and goggles, and you got sprayed with road debris by passing trucks.

A next door neighbour of mine in the '80s copped a driving ban for being carried as a passenger in one of those blue 'invalid carriages'.
His mate was giving him a lift, illegally of course, and lost control and crashed it. Neighbour said the bodywork sort of exploded into about a million pieces, leaving him and the driver sprawled across the chassis with nowhere to hide!
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Today on our bike ride we saw two bubble cars and a procession of Bond Bugs belting towards the Capesthorne Hall vintage motor show. Brilliant.
 
I'd like one of these:

https://i0.wp.com/www.bike-urious.com/wp-content/uploads/Triking-Moto-Guzzi-Front.jpg?w=600&ssl=1

I did have a sort of plan for building a trike powered by a spare Citroen GSA engine. It was going to be called the 'Half-le-Citroen'. I knew people back then who could have done the engineering. It would ideally have kept the hydraulics on the back so you could lower it for cruises and shows and raise it for normal roads.

It would have looked something like this:

1625745017273.png
 
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A friend of mine's husband used to collect 3 wheeled car or parts of them.
He had the yard full of them. They moved to a new house so I don't know what became of them or the piles of newspapers he was going to read and which sat everywhere.
 
[Mod edit: @Cochise 's witty response to unfortunate post above removed so the unfortunateness (?unfortunosity) doesn't propagate. ]


I might have made it a bit more chopperish but the GSA engine is a 1200 air cooled flat four so it wasn't going to look much like a v-twin. There is a bike built round the GSA engine, the BFG;

http://www.citroenet.org.uk/miscellaneous/bfg/bfg.htm
 
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Back in the early 1950s, my father owned a huge old (I seem to remember) 1929 1000cc Brough Superior motorcycle, with a homebrewed sidecar made from the front half of a WWII Mosquito wing tank uneasily spliced to a square rear end built from sheets of quarter-inch plywood. We travelled all over Cheshire, Staffordshire and North Wales in this rig, usually with me in the sidecar, often with my younger cousin sitting between my knees; it was a tight fit. I was about 8 or 9 at the time; she would have been about 6. The Brough Superior was supposed to be "The Rolls-Royce of Motorcycles", but I recall several occasions when it conked out and we would be ignominiously towed home.

Later, he owned an ancient Reliant 3-wheeled van, probably pre-war (I seem to recall a biggish v-twin aircooled engine); this was one of those strange hybrids that looked like the offspring of an unnatural coupling between a tiny plywood van and a motorcycle, the cycle front forks and wheel protruding from the front of the body, though with conventional wheel steering. This was the first motor vehicle I ever drove; oddly enough, up and down the gravel road that led to the exchange yard between the old Snailbeach Railway and the BR Western Region Minsterley branch; all now long gone from this world.

On one occasion we were parked on a slope; my father had stepped out to attend to some business, leaving me in the passenger seat, and we started to roll. I leaped into the driver's seat, steered to the kerb and hauled on the handbrake. He came running after me, demanding what the hell I thought I was doing. I had a hard time of it, convincing him that the reason he still had a van, and a son, was because of my quick thinking. I don't think he ever quite believed me.

When you're 12, justice is sometimes a scarce commodity.
 
Yeah, I know. Despite its unreliability it was a classic machine, and, as you say Trevp, worth a fortune nowadays. Before the Brough there was an elderly 500cc Triumph, early 1920s I believe; one of the old-style bikes with a frame bar over the top of the tank. That, too would have been worth a fair few quid nowadays. Sigh . . . .

Maybe even the little Reliant would have been worth a bit today . . . . Back then, they were all just family transport, bought and sold for a pittance. We later upgraded to a '50s Vauxhall, then a Bedford Kenex camper van. All part of ancient history now.
 
All this talk of Reliant Robins reminds me of my mate’s dad giving me a lift home in one years ago. As it trundled along, vast amounts of smoke started billowing out of the engine. Mate’s dad didn’t seem terribly unperturbed and the car gently trundled into the car park of the Garden House pub while the skeins of smoke started to dissipate. Bizarrely the landlord of the pub came out shouting that we couldn’t park there, despite him having to stand at a distance to avoid the smoke and smell of burning. After a few minutes the smoking stopped, the ignition was turned and off we went on our merry way with no obvious ill effects. Ace car. P.s. i have to mention we did go the long way round to avoid the very steep hill up to my house, so he was aware of some drawbacks to the vehicle in question
 
Here's Fred this was taken on our slipway before he was de frocked for want of a better word.
:omr: :puke2:
DSC00037.JPG

This on the other hand is a mate no longer with us with one of the prototype bonds, the first ones were only 125cc
and he took is new wife on honeymoon in it up to Edinburgh It is little know but they also made a scooter and
race cars, one race car is parked outside the works now a private house in Longridge nr Preston.

BOND2NEW.jpg


View attachment BONDRACE2.JPG
 
One of the guys in my village has two Reliant Robins (Robinii?). He even tows a small trailer with one of them. Not sure I'd trust them on long journeys (I've seen the smoke that comes out of the back) but he loves them.
 
I wont tell you the tale of the friend who sent his in for an MOT.

The garage mechanics drove it into the bay...not realising the pit was uncovered.
 
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They also made the rather fine looking 'Bond Equipe' too.
But it doesn't fit in this thread as it has more than 3 wheels. Unless you take one off.
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My Dad had a Reliant Regal van(Del boy type) and later a Reliant Robin. Being so light they were very nippy -the Robin had an 850cc engine. As I only had a bike licence at the time I would often borrow them for work in cold weather and once got rolled over by a skip lorry -I had to climb out of the passenger door rather ignominiously .
Prior to these he had various motorbike and sidecars, the last being a Vincent Black Shadow and big double adult sidecar ( Vincents are up there with Brough now on prices!) He sometimes used to pick my friend and I up from school in it. Once, when we were both sitting in the front seat with me nearest the door, going round a corner the door flew open and I tipped sideways almost touching the road. My friend luckily grabbed me and hauled me back in with my Dad completely oblivious of all this going on!
On another occasion (in my defence it was the 70s!) when I was 14 or so I had a mock snakeskin coat (ie plastic) with quite a long belt. I jumped into the sidecar one day and must have left my belt trailing outside. When my dad pulled away I felt a tug and realised the belt was trapped in the sidecar wheel and tightened around my waist quite a bit before it eventually snapped.
 
A friend had a van version, he hit something head on and was fired through the roof,
spent a few months in hospital, he was never 100% after that.
Early Reliant Robins had their own all ally 600cc engine then I think it was turned into
a 850?
Later there was the Bond 875 this had a de tuned Hillman Imp engine that went like
stink.
They used to say the the fiberglass in the body would not burn, and they were right
but the resin holding the matting together now that was another story.

Anyone heard of the Salamander? it was a vehicle for the disabled it was built on a Reliant
Kitten chassis I was roped in as a mate was building it for the Uni, we fitted a Borg Warner
auto to it and took it up to over 90 on a runway, when It went into production the workforce
were the bad boys from some scheme or other they would work 3 days get enough money
and disappear into the Moss Side drug dens, we would go and round them up, the bouncers
thought we were barmy dragging them out, we must have had a death wish but no one touched
us, such fun.
1626117127843.png
 
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RaM said:
A friend had a van version, he hit something head on and was fired through the roof,
spent a few months in hospital, he was never 100% after that.
Early Reliant Robins had their own all ally 600cc engine then I think it was turned into
a 850?
Later there was the Bond 875 this had a de tuned Hillman Imp engine that went like
stink.
They used to say the the fiberglass in the body would not burn, and they were right
but the resin holding the matting together now that was another story.

Anyone heard of the Salamander? it was a vehicle for the disabled it was built on a Reliant
Kitten chassis I was roped in as a mate was building it for the Uni, we fitted a Borg Warner
auto to it and took it up to over 90 on a runway, when It went into production the workforce
were the bad boys from some scheme or other they would work 3 days get enough money
and disappear into the Moss Side drug dens, we would go and round them up, the bouncers
thought we were barmy dragging them out, we must have had a death wish but no one touched
us, such fun.
View attachment 42055
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Not heard of the Salamander before. Another one you don't hear of was the Reliant Rialto which I think was the last version of the 3 wheeler, a kind of updated Robin.
 
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Giant R said:
Its strange that both Bond and Reliant, with the Scimitar, both built quite nice sports cars. Quite weird stablemates you would think.
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Not so strange (from wikipedia)

"Reliant bought out Bond Cars in 1969 after Bond had gone into liquidation. ...It is said that Bond was Reliant's main competitor in three-wheeled vehicles, with the Bond Minicar and the Bond 875, but Reliant's vehicles outsold Bond's in huge numbers, with a much larger production and dealer network. Reliant did use the Bond name for the 1970s Bond Bug, which was a Reliant prototype originally named the Reliant Rogue."

And don't forget also the rather attractive Reliant Sabre.
1626166659283.png
 
Giant R said:
Not heard of the Salamander before. Another one you don't hear of was the Reliant Rialto which I think was the last version of the 3 wheeler, a kind of updated Robin.
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They actually went back to the Robin name for their final production model, the one after the Rialto. They have what I can only describe as "modern" styling - I think it's particularly evident in the headlight shape - and they just don't look right in my eyes. Surprisingly expensive on the second-hand market, too.

rmc_hist7.jpg
 
Trevp666 said:
Not so strange (from wikipedia)

"Reliant bought out Bond Cars in 1969 after Bond had gone into liquidation. ...It is said that Bond was Reliant's main competitor in three-wheeled vehicles, with the Bond Minicar and the Bond 875, but Reliant's vehicles outsold Bond's in huge numbers, with a much larger production and dealer network. Reliant did use the Bond name for the 1970s Bond Bug, which was a Reliant prototype originally named the Reliant Rogue."

And don't forget also the rather attractive Reliant Sabre.
View attachment 42062
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True, I suppose the light weight of the fibreglass body benefitted both the 3 wheelers and sports cars - Berkeley were also a UK manufacturer who did a 3 wheeler and sports 4 wheelers.
 
GNC said:
Danny Baker mentioned on his podcast today, about a spate of unknown gangs (or maybe just one gang) who in South London turned three-wheeler cars onto their roofs for a brief period about fifty years ago. Apparently it was reported in newspapers. It stopped as soon as it began, and no culprits were found. Anyone know any more?
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In about 1980 I was driving home in Kensington, London at about 11 pm and approaching the junction of Cromwell Road and Queensgate I saw a Messerschmitt 'Bubble Car' neatly balanced on its roof in the centre of the junction - it clearly wasn't a crash - someone had deliberately put it there; how interesting that this was an epidemic, I assumed it was a one off.
 
Kondoru said:
My Uncle wants one of those.

Cant think why.

Ive seen the original in the museum in Peel; Its the size of a big single seater sofa.
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It would be dangerous out on the road. Motorway is a no-no.
 
Yes, but if he couldn't go on the motorway, he would have an excuse not to see us.

(Facetious of me; he loves us lots...but isnt keen to travel this far)
 
Kondoru said:
Yes, but if he couldn't go on the motorway, he would have an excuse not to see us.

(Facetious of me; he loves us lots...but isnt keen to travel this far)
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I feel a kinship with your uncle... Only with my own relatives!
 
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