Three-Wheeled Cars

[Bad Bungle]

Bond minicar certainly looked an attractive convertible three-wheeler - but I guess you get what you pay for.

 

[Bad Bungle]

A replica of it is sometimes seen around these parts, complete with two blokes done up as Del Boy and Rodney. You can have your photo taken with it at charity events.

'Only Fools and Horses' is the only popular perpetually-repeating series of which I have never seen an episode (for some no doubt Fortean reason).

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

"Vehicular snobbery?"

More like vehicular stability - the one wheel at the front was always a disaster waiting to happen!

I can see the appeal of driving based on the limitations of your licence though.

My mid-life crisis has already manifested itself with driving a Jeep, getting into surfing and having a tattoo.

I'm now eyeing up a Harley Davidson but, so I can jump right into the saddle with my existing licence, I'm looking at one of these:

 

[Mythopoeika]

I'm now eyeing up a Harley Davidson but, so I can jump right into the saddle with my existing licence, I'm looking at one of these:

View attachment 28958

A mobility scooter?

 

[Bigphoot2]

The main advantage of 3-wheelers is that you can drive them on a motorbike licence (if you don't have a reverse gear, for some reason)

When I was kid I thought the Bond Bug was futuristic looking vehicle.
View attachment 28949

There was a company that turned a bunch of them into 4 wheel jobs.

View attachment 28950

But Reliant also made 4 wheel version of the Robin. It was called the Reliant Kitten. I saw one that had a 3 litre engine once.

Fibreglass body so they didn't rust. Except for the chassis. Probably rotten as a peach now.
View attachment 28951

I saw a Bond Bug on fire when I was a kid. It was a very impressive blaze and in no time at all it was only the metal bits left. My mate's older brother was thinking about getting one until he saw the fire.

 

[escargot]

'Only Fools and Horses' is the only popular perpetually-repeating series of which I have never seen an episode (for some no doubt Fortean reason).

I'm happy to be no longer subjected to it.

 

[Roland Deschain]

A replica of it is sometimes seen around these parts, complete with two blokes done up as Del Boy and Rodney. You can have your photo taken with it at charity events.

Are they still doing that? I saw them years ago doing that Schtik. Del Boy must be as all as Grandad by now.

 

[escargot]

Are they still doing that? I saw them years ago doing that Schtik. Del Boy must be as all as Grandad by now.

I've seen them in the last couple of years.

 

[Trevp666]

Really....really....if you want a 3 wheeler, don't bother with any of those other vehicles, Reliant, Bond, Morgan, etc.....
Just get yourself a Grinnall Scorpion.

 

[Krepostnoi]

What a crappy car! No wonder they don't sell them now.

Clarkson, ever the trustworthy source, had the steering interfered with to make it tip easier for his TV japes.

Reliant also made 4 wheel version of the Robin. It was called the Reliant Kitten. I saw one that had a 3 litre engine once.

I had a Kitten for a while - tremendous fun to drive. It rescued my wife in heavy snow, while the Chelsea tractors were all getting bogged down. She was heavily pregnant at the time, and was eventually able to pull into a pub car park on the A5. The miserable sods wouldn't make her a cup of tea to warm up. I ended up selling that Kitten to an old bloke in St Alban's, who spent a small fortune bringing it back to concourse standard: he sent me the pics. Reliant made an earlier 4-wheel plastic car called the Rebel, too.

Fibreglass body so they didn't rust. Except for the chassis.

Yup. Guess what my Robin failed its MoT on...

the fibreglass chassis didn't rust

see above... Later Robins had a galvanized chassis, which was longer-lasting.

A replica of it is sometimes seen around these parts, complete with two blokes done up as Del Boy and Rodney. You can have your photo taken with it at charity events.

Bloody OFAH, pushing up prices in the hope of selling to morons who'll spray them yellow. Meanwhile, taking the actual history of the vehicle away, and putting them out of reach of real enthusiasts. Making a Del-Boy replica ought to be a hanging offence, with drawing and quartering if a Rialto is involved. I know this is a strange hill to die on, but there, nonetheless, I stand.

Of course, me, I had a one-off Regal saloon, which a tinkerer had converted into a hatchback. For a while, I was convinced I had a factory prototype, but a now-defunct forum told me the history of it. I sold that for twice what I paid for it. So that kept me in chips for the evening

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

Really....really....if you want a 3 wheeler, don't bother with any of those other vehicles, Reliant, Bond, Morgan, etc.....
Just get yourself a Grinnall Scorpion.

View attachment 28970

That does look a lot of fun!
Oddly, on their website, the Scorpion is shown in the car section rather than the trikes.
Does it not count as a trike if the single wheel is at the back, or is it the fact that you sit in a seat rather than a saddle?

 

[Analogue Boy]

I saw a Bond Bug on fire when I was a kid. It was a very impressive blaze and in no time at all it was only the metal bits left. My mate's older brother was thinking about getting one until he saw the fire.

That’s reminded me! I once saw a parked up Reliant Robin on fire. The driver could only stand and watch as the melting bits went down the drain.

 

[Bigphoot2]

That’s reminded me! I once saw a parked up Reliant Robin on fire. The driver could only stand and watch as the melting bits went down the drain.

I dread to think what would happen if someone was trapped in one of those things.

 

[Trevp666]

That does look a lot of fun!
Oddly, on their website, the Scorpion is shown in the car section rather than the trikes.
Does it not count as a trike if the single wheel is at the back, or is it the fact that you sit in a seat rather than a saddle?

I expect it's just because they sell more describing them as cars instead of trikes.
It does still count as a trike regardless of whether the single wheel is front or back.

 

[Analogue Boy]

I dread to think what would happen if someone was trapped in one of those things.

You’re not seriously going out in that are you Sir?

 

[Cochise]

In the late 1960s, my mother had an old Heinkel Trojan bubble car. 2 wheels at the front, 1 driven wheel at the back. No reverse gear, and the only access was through the front, climbing in and out past the steering wheel. Aged 7, I had to push it some distance while my mum was steering after it broke down. On another occasion, my grandfather was able to lift one side to tip it to examine what he thought might be the fault. I was sitting in it at the time.

There was a local legend of an unpopular teacher who arrived at work in one, and a gang of youths picked it up and turned it face to the wall before he could get out. With no reverse gear, and the door opening forwards, he was trapped.

A chap who lived near me had a Messerschmidt 3 wheeler: 2 wheels at the front, 1 at the back, and with room for one passenger who sat immediately behind the driver. To my mind, as a kid, it was not unlike a plane fuselage on wheels.

One of my dad's friends had a Reliant Supervan: 2 driven wheels at the back, 1 steered wheel at the front. It was a faded milk chocolate colour. I went in it a time or two. He explained that he could drive it on a motorcycle licence because it had no reverse gear. It was one of those older single men's cars, kneed deep in cigarette packets and sweet wrappers.

A group of local bikers also had a Supervan. They painted a confederate flag taking up the whole roof, in true Dukes of Hazard style. (In those days, the confederate flag was thought of in England as "the rebel flag" and was associated with rock and roll music, and had no associations with slavery. Times have moved on and I would no longer war one myself, although I used to, perfectly innocently.

My dad was walking home from the pub one night and the Dukes of Hazard Supervan came past at high speed (probably 30 or 40 mph!) took a hard left turn, flipped and rolled a couple of times. It ended up on its roof. The occupants got out, turned it the right way up by hand and continued on their journey.

We referred to them as "plastic pigs". There was a spate of torching them in the late 1970s. (I was not involved.) At the same time, there was another cheap small car, 4 wheeled, made by DAF. Someone went round the local area with a brush and some silver paint editing them to say "DAFT".

I remember Bond Bugs. They were ugly things. They were a bit of a craze at that time, along with VW-engined "beach buggies". I lived in Nottingham at the time which is a good 2 hours or more from the nearest beach!

My second car was a Citroen 2CV6, bright red. 602 cc horizontally opposed flat twin, capable of 80 mph with a good run up. It's still the car I remember most fondly. The gear change was like a walking stick coming horizontally out of the dashboard. 1st gear was where you would expect 2nd, and reverse was where you would expect 1st. My then wife made the obvious mistake when doing a hill start once and scared the guy in the car behind half to death.

You could get a tandem inside the 2CV, although with the front wheel taken off. You could take the back bench seat and the front seats out easily to sit on them for a picnic. One unsuspected benefit of the design was that, at a feeble 10 stone, I was able to lift the back end by the bumper and walk it round 45 degrees one day when I was boxed in in a car park.

Another car of the time was the original Fiat 500. Tiny, lightweight, and charismatic, it had a full length fabric roof to save weight, not as an extra! It was not at all like the retro fashion statement of the modern Fiat 500.

The world has moved on, but there was a special charm to the gloriously quirky cars of that time. They shouldn't have worked, but they did.

And yes, everyone said "Robin Reliant" and the were, and remain, wrong!

Reminds me of the time when my clapped out Rover 2000 stripped its starter motor pinion after dying at some traffic lights. I had to get my 6-months pregnant first wife to give it a shove to jump start it - she didn't know how to drive cars. Fortunately it was slightly downhill.

I wonder why she left me?

 

[Cochise]

"Vehicular snobbery?"

More like vehicular stability - the one wheel at the front was always a disaster waiting to happen!

I can see the appeal of driving based on the limitations of your licence though.

My mid-life crisis has already manifested itself with driving a Jeep, getting into surfing and having a tattoo.

I'm now eyeing up a Harley Davidson but, so I can jump right into the saddle with my existing licence, I'm looking at one of these:

View attachment 28958

They can be quite stable because of the short wheelbase. I have a mate, name of Mogs, who builds them. He took my wife's best friend, Ness, to her marriage on one.

Do not under any circumstances be persuaded that a Harley + sidecar is a better solution. It isn't, it just makes more money for H-D. I think combos should be limited to 50mph like caravans, not leas because if the radical imbalances when you try to brake hard.

 

[Sillyhuron]

Oi! A won't hear a word against the 2CV!
I owned two of them in my younger days.
Loved the roll-back canvas roof and the general retro look. Cheap as chips to run - very high mpg and lowest insurance group.
Plenty of room too for my guitar, didgeridoo and cricket gear.

Guitar, didgeridoo and cricket gear... I have visions of the worlds oddest one man band.....

 

[EnolaGaia]

... Does it not count as a trike if the single wheel is at the back, or is it the fact that you sit in a seat rather than a saddle?

As Trevp666 already pointed out, it still counts as a "trike" (i.e., a 3-wheeled motorcycle) for licensing / legalities purposes. For these purposes the distinction between car and motorcycle are typically defined with respect to size, power and / or number of wheels rather than configuration.

While I'm on the subject ...

The straightforward "tricycle" wheel configuration (1 front / 2 rear) is usually called a "trike", "delta" or "conventional" layout.

The 2 front / 1 rear configuration is most formally labeled as the "tadpole" layout in the USA.

Some folks reserve the label "trike" for a delta configuration; some apply it to both configurations.

Commercially sold delta configurations are (AFAIK) driven by the two rear wheels. I've seen photos of experimental / custom rigs that drive the single front wheel, but as I understand it these are very rare and not considered useful except for woo factor and bragging rights.

In contrast, there are commercially sold tadpole configurations using both front- and rear-wheel drives.

 

[Krepostnoi]

I think combos should be limited to 50mph like caravans, not leas because if the radical imbalances when you try to brake hard.

Hard disagree. Have you ever driven one? It's the imbalances which make them so much fun: drifting round right-handers, or finding that second point of equilibrium after taking a left-hander with the chair wheel in the air, and carrying on like that in a straight line. Honestly, they are tremendous things to operate. Provided that you know the sidecar will attempt to pivot around the bike when you brake, while the bike will attempt to drive around the sidecar when you accelerate, you'll be golden.

And no, officer, I don't know where that big dent in the wall of the road safety centre came from. It's a complete coincidence that it appeared just after my maiden voyage on a combo...

 

[Trevp666]

There used to be a very common commercial vehicle called the Scammel Scarab, used mainly in warehouses and 'the docks' etc that employed a single front wheel which had a great degree of motion, so that they could turn within the length of their own wheelbase, making it more easy to move stuff around. Goods were sometimes loaded into special little trailers that fitted onto the tow-hitch or '5th wheel' (4th wheel?) as their design pre-dated modern containerised transport. It was also used by the Royal Mail and the RAF in various configurations and sold well for many years.

 

[Trevp666]

I was driving along and I saw a guy on a motorbike and every time he stopped he fell sideways.
I asked him what the problem was and he said "It's been like this ever since I took the sidecar off".

 

[Krepostnoi]

There used to be a very common commercial vehicle called the Scammel Scarab, used mainly in warehouses and 'the docks' etc that employed a single front wheel which had a great degree of motion, so that they could turn within the length of their own wheelbase, making it more easy to move stuff around. Goods were sometimes loaded into special little trailers that fitted onto the tow-hitch or '5th wheel' (4th wheel?) as their design pre-dated modern containerised transport. It was also used by the Royal Mail and the RAF in various configurations and sold well for many years.
View attachment 28989

Reliant were not to be outdone. They had their own 3-wheel commercial vehicle, the Ant:

Apparently, one version or another was in production as late as 1995!

 

[Krepostnoi]

And you can't move for these contraptions in my neck of the woods. I don't mind the traffic here, perhaps strangely, but these things put the fear into me:

 

[gordonrutter]

The Whomobile was a three wheeler
https://www.imps4ever.info/specials/whomobil.html

 

[Bigphoot2]

There used to be a very common commercial vehicle called the Scammel Scarab, used mainly in warehouses and 'the docks' etc that employed a single front wheel which had a great degree of motion, so that they could turn within the length of their own wheelbase, making it more easy to move stuff around. Goods were sometimes loaded into special little trailers that fitted onto the tow-hitch or '5th wheel' (4th wheel?) as their design pre-dated modern containerised transport. It was also used by the Royal Mail and the RAF in various configurations and sold well for many years.
View attachment 28989

A familiar sight from my childhood, we had a lot of mills in the area and there were swarms of them going from building to building.

 

[Bad Bungle]

Really....really....if you want a 3 wheeler, don't bother with any of those other vehicles, Reliant, Bond, Morgan, etc.....
Just get yourself a Grinnall Scorpion.

View attachment 28970

Open to the elements and no room for the shopping/tackle - all the reasons why bikers went for the Reliant.

 

[maximus otter]

Hard disagree. Have you ever driven one? It's the imbalances which make them so much fun: drifting round right-handers, or finding that second point of equilibrium after taking a left-hander with the chair wheel in the air, and carrying on like that in a straight line. Honestly, they are tremendous things to operate. Provided that you know the sidecar will attempt to pivot around the bike when you brake, while the bike will attempt to drive around the sidecar when you accelerate, you'll be golden.

And no, officer, I don't know where that big dent in the wall of the road safety centre came from. It's a complete coincidence that it appeared just after my maiden voyage on a combo...

maximus otter

 

[madmath]

Tuk-Tuks are, of course, the ubiquitous in three-wheelers.

With a less-polluting engine, seatbelts, and doors, though, I'd have one for tooling about my NJ suburb.

If you want the ultimate in three-wheelers, you want a Morgan 3Wheeler. Especially in Spitfire livery.

 

[Spookdaddy]

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 the time when 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.