Better than a motorcycle.

I am going to be ending the series on cars with this superb example of what happens when a company looking to broaden its line of vehicles and branch into new markets makes a horrendous mistake. I give you the Zundapp Janus.

Zundapp was quite well known for its motorcycles. The company has been around since the 1st World War when it made weapon parts. After the war, like many suppliers to war effort, the company looked to move on with other products. They developed a line of motorcycles that was well recieved and notable for innovations such as enclosed engines and drive shaft powered rear wheels. Not surprisingly they supplied the German government during the 2nd World War with quality motorcycles.

After the war, this must be getting tiring for Zundapp, they again looked to find a niche. This time they produced a scooter the "Bella". The fifties found them producing their one and only car, the Janus. This amazing vehicle, named for the Roman god, was literally two ended. It had two seats; one facing forward, the other, back. A very tiny 14 horsepower single cylinder two stroke engine sat in the middle between the seats. Riders alighted from doors at each end.

It could go about 50 mph but handling was dependant on the weight balance between the front and back seats. Unless it was pretty even, the centre of gravity was alarmingly off kilter. A heavy passenger would lift the front wheels and cause steering irregularities.

Can't imagine what it was like to be the passenger in traffic.

Less is less.

The 1957 King Midget Model III, classified as a "micro car" was the mighty steed of a long line of Midgets. The brainchild of Claude Dry and Dale Orcutt, the original was a kit produced around 1946 and aimed at what market, it's hard to tell. The inexpensive very small car market. Yes the kit was only 500 bucks or so but that gave you the frame and running gear and patterns for any local sheet metal shop to fabricate the body for you. Unless of course you wanted to do it yourself. I have seen home made cars and usually backyard tickerers are very good at one aspect of automobile manufacturing. rarely do they pass all facets of the trade. I remember someone driving around my town in the buggy contraption from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. It looked a perfect reproduction, but it was usually on the side of the road ringed in smoke with the owner a respectful distance away fearing other/more eruptions from the engine compartment. The point is, even though the Midget was boxy and plain with no compound curves to mystify any craftsmen, there is every chance the body work was inventive. They also sold 2 models the Junior and Trainer that had no plans included for body panels. Owners could make whatever thay wanted!

To add to the adventure of owning a Midget kit you were given absolute freedom to power it with any power plant you wanted, so long as it was small and had one cylinder. Read that to mean lawn mower. Typically Midgets were powered, either home built or factory assesmbled, with power plants ranging from 2 to about 10 horsepower. All those horses were coupled to one rear wheel only (removing the need for a rear differential) through a custom designed 2 speed automatic transmission. From what I can find out there seems to be many variations of the King Midget; from models with no reverse and pull start, to others with more sophisticated features like speedometers. The designers of the car came from the American civil air patrol and knew a thing or two about aircraft construction. As a result, this car was light, about 500 pounds.

I haven't found too much on performance specs on these except that Model 3's could go about 50mph. If you had one of the more austere models you might need to have someone pace you to find out.

Dome on wheels.

R. Buckminster Fuller, the designer of the geodesic dome, was an inventor, futurist and he designed CARS! Lucky for us he left us with this gem the Dymaxion. Built in 1933 it went through several design changes and tweeks before it was just right.

The first version, mysteriously called Car One, came out in 1933. It looked like the front of an airplane, or the gondola of an airsip. The entire vehicle was one aerodynamic, free flowing exhibition of sheet metal art. It was powered by a 90 hp Ford V8 engine and reportedly could go like hell. Tests by Fuller at the time claimed the smooth sides and seamless body lowered wind resistance and increased fuel efficiency. Pretty forward thinking for the time. No doubt he was right. The trouble with his design however was that this vehicle was a three wheeler. Of all car designs, the three wheeler is the shittiest. Unstable, tough to get a road feel with, and unnecessary with a vehicle as big as the Dymaxion. And to top off the "just plain hard to drive" aspect of this invention, the 3rd wheel, the one that steered in this case was at the back. The power being applied to the 2 front wheels. It was remarkably unstable in a cross wind, even after a stabilizer tail was added.

Fuller had intended the Dymaxion to be a car / airplane cross and he hoped that the future would bring the power plants capable of this. For now it looked like half an airplane. It sat 11 people, could go 120 MPH, and could turn completely around in its own radius. It was, however, over 20 feet long. These specifications surpass any of the specifications for modern mini vans.

Stick to radios.

For whatever reason, people, mainly men, seem to not stop when things are going well, or OK even. They just press on and push. The result can sometimes be brilliant, like going to the moon. Or tragically over the top, like the atom bomb. Other men build things like this. The 1949 Crosley Hotshot. Right off the bat, you should be thinking trouble.

Powell Crosley Jr. was kinda famous for his radios. So why the heck build cars? That's another story. But what we have here is what he called a "sports car". Good heavens no. It was sports like in style. It had cut away doors, sat two people and had pod headlights a la MG's. Early models sold for about 850 bucks. Crosley had made a variety of utility type vehicles and power plants for miltary purposes so cost, ease of assembly and simplicity were paramount. But that was during war time. No need for that with the buying public.

Performance was ugly. The power plant was a ghastly 25 odd horsepower thing made out of brazed tin and steel sheet metal (!) and copper. Only later models got a cast iron block. If the welds didn't go during its less than jack rabbit starts, the corrosion from the combination of metals under pressure and heat would eat holes in the cylinder walls the size of pennies. To his credit, the engine was very innovative. It sported overhead cams, high rev capability (over 5000 rpm) and very light weight, just 60 pounds. Due no doubt to fact the engine was made out of sheet metal.

This car was small. It was 145 inches long and weighed a scanty 1100 pounds. No doors, no trunk. It had an interesting feature that was a hold over from the war years- four wheel disc brakes based on aircraft braking sytems. This was totally ahead of its time but suffered from constant problems because the brakes weren't sealed and were prone to corrosion.

A homely little thing with the fit and finish of a whellbarrow, it actually could go past 70mph, carry two people and cost under $1000.

Don't tip this one over.

So now I'm going to have a go at travel for few posts and see what the minds of men have come up with to carry us on our travels. It's not very hard to come up some absolute head scratchers when it comes to the automobile. Even the craziest airplanes and stupidest boats can't touch what some people think is OK to drive around in. Once again, I am amazed someone thought that these wack jobs were just fine, thank you very much.

So to get the travel ball rolling (sorry) I give you the 1913 Scripps-Booth Bi-Autogo. The first, and only 2 wheeled automobile. Yeah, thats where the story gets muddy. Two wheels is a motorcycle. Not with this monster. What we have here is a V8 powered 3 seater with 37 inch wooden wheels and a set of retractable training type outrigger wheels that the driver lowered at slow speeds. These features alone secured its place in the "safe and fun to drive" category. The list goes on. Since electric starters were only available then on Cadilacs, this puppy started with compressed air power, generated from an engine mounted compressor. Hmmm, getting safer. Didn't anyone stop to think how crazy it was to power what was essentially a motorcycle with a 330 cubic inch V8 engine? Mankind hadn't really perfected the motorcycle at this stage and hadn't been flying 10 years!

Keeping the engine cooled was the work of about 140 meters of copper pipe that coiled and snaked its way around the chassis and farings. The overall look of all of this piping is truly astounding. Steering was with a steering wheel, but steering was actually accomplished motorcycle style. That is to say, by turning slightly and leaning. This ugly and ineffective system must have been terrifying to perfect as it was next to impossible to turn the wheel straight ahead from a sharp turn unless you were a linebacker.

This gem was the invention of James Scripps Booth, of the famous publishing family. Luckily, he actually drove the prototype a few times and went on to 4 wheeled cars instead.