The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

CKhalvashi

Pyxis wrote: »

You are Delboy, and I claim my £5!






Actually, I well remember seeing loads of three-wheel cars in my yoof.

And bubblecars. Remember bubblecars?

The bubblecar was beautiful.

It was the other way around from the Reliant, which had the effect on corners of being almost on rails rather than falling over though.

Please don't quote the photos, as while it's no longer in the UK I still own it





MG Metro engine, Mini gearbox and switchgear, and it weighed IIRC about 700kg, so was powerful and fun, if a little unsafe (probably due to weight) above motorway cruising speeds.

michaels

Pyxis wrote: »

You are Delboy, and I claim my £5!






Actually, I well remember seeing loads of three-wheel cars in my yoof.

And bubblecars. Remember bubblecars?

Apparently they had no reverse gear so in another terribly funny episode of top gear they parked one forward right up to a wall leaving one of the presenters unable to open the door and get out....

chris_m

michaels wrote: »

Apparently they had no reverse gear so in another terribly funny episode of top gear they parked one forward right up to a wall leaving one of the presenters unable to open the door and get out....

I think that was predated by Hale and Pace, in their series "The Management", where their transport was a reverse-less bubble car.

The lack of reverse gear was, IIRC, to get around licencing restrictions so that they could be treated as a motorcycle with sidecar and driven on a motorbike licence.

Some did have a form of reverse gear. You stopped the engine, flicked a switch and restarted it but now running backwards - which gave you three reverse gears and no forward gears

chris_m

CKhalvashi wrote: »

The bubblecar was beautiful.

It was the other way around from the Reliant, which had the effect on corners of being almost on rails rather than falling over though.

MG Metro engine, Mini gearbox and switchgear, and it weighed IIRC about 700kg, so was powerful and fun, if a little unsafe (probably due to weight) above motorway cruising speeds.

Which bubble's that?
Or is it a kit car?

CKhalvashi

chris_m wrote: »

Which bubble's that?
Or is it a kit car?

That's not a bubble car, I was referring to the photo that Pyxis posted.

It's a homebuilt vehicle that was built by my father in the early 1990s with a Mini as a base car (which it inherited the registration from) and the local scrappy's spare parts bin.

Year of manufacture was listed as 1975 on the MoT's, but it wasn't registered as that vehicle until IIRC 1993 or 1994, the Mini (which was an ex-driving school car) having been taken off the road in about 1991.

Pyxis

michaels wrote: »

Apparently they had no reverse gear so in another terribly funny episode of top gear they parked one forward right up to a wall leaving one of the presenters unable to open the door and get out....

chris_m wrote: »

I think that was predated by Hale and Pace, in their series "The Management", where their transport was a reverse-less bubble car.

The lack of reverse gear was, IIRC, to get around licencing restrictions so that they could be treated as a motorcycle with sidecar and driven on a motorbike licence.

Some did have a form of reverse gear. You stopped the engine, flicked a switch and restarted it but now running backwards - which gave you three reverse gears and no forward gears

Or, alternatively, you could just put your feet through the floor and walk it backwards! :rotfl:


(That's what you do with a motorbike, anyway! )

chris_m

Pyxis wrote: »

Or, alternatively, you could just put your feet through the floor and walk it backwards! :rotfl:

Like I could do with my first Austin Cambridge - until I got the metalworm evicted and a new floorpan welded in, that is :rotfl:

PasturesNew

I remember seeing a Bond Bug parked in a car park I was walking through once. Little orange/black thing it was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_Bug


And remember the olden days disabled cars?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-23061676

Pyxis

PasturesNew wrote: »

And remember the olden days disabled cars?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-23061676

They weren't totally scrapped until 2003, surprisingly, and then on safety grounds.........

Quote
"I've got a personal friend who used to drive one across the moors in Yorkshire," says Jim Rawlings, archivist for Disabled Motoring UK. "He had to carry half a sack of King Edwards to weigh it down because it was so susceptible to crosswinds."
Bert Massie adds: "I had a few go on fire on me, so you'd stop and other motorists would drag you out as the thing went up in flames."
Unquote

:eek:

chris_m

PasturesNew wrote: »

I remember seeing a Bond Bug parked in a car park I was walking through once. Little orange/black thing it was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_Bug

Any colour you like, as long as it's orange.

And remember the olden days disabled cars?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-23061676

Any colour you like, as long as it's pale blue.