Quote:
Originally Posted by euromodder
Honestly, who IS going to buy a 3-wheeler with restrictions, outside of niches like ecomodder ?...
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I have to tap +1. In the UK we have had a load of 3 wheelers a lot of them made in my home town of Preston (Lawrie Bond designed a lot of them including the Bond Bug).
This is a Bond Minicar - the 2 stroke motorbike engine was mounted with the front wheel pulling the car along - like a road going bumper car.
The big issue with these was the tricycle layout - the 3rd wheel was at the front. This made them unstable and, well, useless really.
At the same time other 3 wheelers from overseas had the 3rd wheel at the back so the two wheels at the front with the most work to do (steering and braking) were at the front.
But lets me honest here, they were only bought as long as the supply of proper cars was restricted. As soon as Europe started to make 4 wheeled cars, including economy and cheap cars like the 2CV or original Fiat 500, Renault 4CV etc. these cars vanished asap.
They had a brief respite during the various oil crisis that we had between WW2 and the 1970s but they also died quickly when mainstream manufacturers caught up.
A few cars that killed them:
If you could have a full sized car for the same money and more or less have the same FE why bother with the problems of 3 wheels ?
Coming right up to date even if Aptera get going again somewhere else, even China, why bother ? If GM USA decided to import or make the Corsa in the US as a modern day Metro, or Ford imported the KA or Nissan the Pixo or Suzuki the Alto (both the latter 2 from India) then the Aptera is dead.
Just as dead as the Tucker or any other low volume high dream machine you could think of.