1951 Hoffman, dangerous fun

[botsapper]

One cylinder engine, short wheelbase, wide front fixed track, forklift driving and the weirdest rear engine/cradle steering but still tickled your sketched aero ideas. One-off but should have stayed as vaporware. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=68&v=Y16ObVRvgOE

[elhigh]

Originally Posted by botsapper

One cylinder engine, short wheelbase, wide front fixed track, forklift driving and the weirdest rear engine/cradle steering but still tickled your sketched aero ideas. One-off but should have stayed as vaporware. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=68&v=Y16ObVRvgOE

You're not using the word "fun" the way other people use the word "fun."

[Frank Lee]

Truly so much fail. And yet I like the looks, even the awful asymmetry. Fix the engineering and it could be fun.

[RedDevil]

When would the Elio hit the road again?

[botsapper]

Originally Posted by elhigh

You're not using the word "fun" the way other people use the word "fun."

Oooh; backstroke in a shark tank, give your bro a kidney, bull riding 'Diablo', fugu sashimi bento box, low-altitude wingsuit flying and reading ecomodder forums during rush hour.

[freebeard]

Hey, that's Jason Torchinsky. A personal hero. There's a whole Jalopnik channel, but the Jason Drives playlist only has this one video.

And those rear-view mirrors? LaughterOL.

[Xist]

Fun?

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Truly so much fail. And yet I like the looks, even the awful asymmetry. Fix the engineering and it could be fun.

I agree, the optimist in me only sees the potential.

The sane part of my brain (rational left side) is screaming - RUN AWAY.

[freebeard]

It's like someone took a verbal description of a Dymaxion transport ("the engine is on a pivoting frame with the single rear wheel") and tried to build it.

I went looking for production figures (I think it must be "one") and found this, w/ additional details:

What It's Like To Drive The Worst Car Ever Built

I was able to drive the astounding Hoffmann thanks to our friends at the Lane Motor Museum, whom I asked specifically to find me their worst cars. When they polled everyone and came up with a list, only one car received a unanimous vote: the 1951 Hoffmann.

Of course, I was wildly interested. It helps that the car looks like something that’s very appealing to me at first glance — strange, streamlined, sort of like a zeppelin and a colossal robotic tortoise made angry love. But the more I looked, the stranger things got: odd, asymmetrical curves and details, oddly and seemingly willfully mis-aligned parts and trim, a general shape seemingly designed with either a gleeful disregard or outright contempt for both the human form and the laws of physics.

Faster backwards? And how does that shift linkage work with the whole drivetrain spinning in circles?

[skyking]

It's as if there was this shape, and it was good. and there was this pile of running gear, and they picked the most bizarre collection of parts and grafted it on there.