Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Previa
Gotta say that is the coolest trike I have ever seen!
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Ditto moi, Ken. The POC prototype styling looks fabulous. I love the SpaceshipOne portholes (I'm a fellow Rutan fan man) and the front end treatment sets an aggressive mood. The body style is (relatively) easy to build, reasonably efficient, and to quote The Incredibles' neighbor kid, it is totally wicked. Styling-wise, it's sort of a cross between a battlebot and a Formula Junior car prepped for Death Race 2000.
I wish you every success and am looking forward to your two-seater with great interest. If I understand correctly, the two place model is the model you are selling and the single seater is strictly for testing and promotion. You're not offering the single seater to the public and I'm sure you drive it with considerable care. It isn't likely as safe as the current crop of nanny-state production cars (I sure know MAX isn't) but to quote Dick Rutan (the other brother), "Freedom is more important than safety," and I'm with him on that.
While researching another subject, I clicked the Buy one now! menu on your two seater
Home home page, and read...
"These will have the same hard-edge styling of the proof of concept prototype (instead of the rounded styling of the home page rendering.) (In fact, later production vehicles are likely to have the same styling, partly because we have received positive feedback, and partly because the process is more easily scaled for high or low production.)"
If you haven't finished your body tooling, I'd like you to consider...hang on a minute while I bring in the U.S. Navy Band Sea Chanters.
[shuffle shuffle shuffle stop, 18 singers clear their throats and stand at attention]
Hit it, sailors!
"Ankles away, my boys, ankles awaaaay..."
That's enough, gentlemen and ladies, thanks for coming by.
Now then, Dick R said that about homebuilt airplane pilots, and I think it applies to us car folks too--we have a moral right to trade our own safety for our own satisfaction. However, he didn't mean we can trade the safety of bystanders for our own satisfaction. The NTHSB standards for pedestrian protection are what keeps production cars from having edgy pointy aggressive front ends (or have for about half a century--before these standards were in place, many car manufacturers had bullet noses on the front, teeth in the grill, and similar hard-edge styling).
The badass vehicles in movies and car shows look threatening because, well, because they are (Out of my way if you know what's good for you). Despite the positive feedback your styling inspires, and despite the ease of construction of the current look, rounding the forward-facing pointy and edgy bits will make your trikes safer for the folks in the crosswalk, and could save your customers a lot of paperwork.
Besides, rounding the front will improve streamlining and save fuel, as long as you keep your trikes subsonic.
