From sidecar to slidecar

[Big Al]

A trike with one wheel at the front, double seat and double geared steering. Thus as you steer left the seating subassembly shifts over to balance the vehicle by biasing the weight to that side. Vice versa on opposite lock. Saves the passenger leaping about all over the place, as in shifting weight on a combo. Double up on lights and one looks ahead, the other round the corner. No complex and heavy door construction, or opening window as such, you get out the rear of the exposed side on lock. Add simplicity of power and design, you have a Microcar no one ever made.
By biasing the weights and positions you could also produce an offsett wheel plan handing the driving side of the car to favour the side of the road drive, since most roads are cambered across their section. This would increase the effect of stability in moving the carried weight by its placement further over the wheels for a reduction in length. In effect more leverage. This would create a small car, which would out handle the opposition of the same size. Say a Mini El. Since the frontal area moves, the aerodynamic impact is little more than a 'normal' microcar, so speeds due to light weight innervations and simple specification remain as high as is reasonable.

Keep the farmers happy, here is my comment above, available to the full ridicule of those that would be rushing to buy one if Laurie Bond, Brutsch, Issitguiness or any other established desirable designer tried breaking new ground, and had made some. I would like to know why my idea would not work as a functioning car? The problem is, I suspect, the majority cannot think minimalism, as our world offers so much that is over complicated. Please be certain I am not saying it would be a good car. But I bet it work better than some of the rubbish I have owned over the years!

More to the point, there is some innervation. It is not a recycled BMW microcar, or Schmitt, that looks like it has been left out of the fridge an hour, melt a bit and have some non green electric rubbish shoved in the back. But a stylist would not understand that. I think that is why Bond's stuff tends to the eccentric, and works. Brutsch stuff looks great, but doesn't, only really becoming drivable when given to a third party. Issitaguiness, no its a Mackeson, on the other hand made great cars by mistake. Someone else had to pull out the merit for him, as he could not see it, but non the less felt it was there. Morris MInor + the couple of inches, when he wasn't there. Mini, insisted on the wrong suspension, and no motorsport. I digress, but microcars are ever the home of applied innervation. That is why they are such an interesting area of vehicles to be into.

Que Steve, with the V8 version of the sidecar (8 Piaggio 125cc barrels for simplicity). Sorry feeling naughty this morning.

[steven mandell]

Genius germ of a possibly fruitful endeavor.
I have had somewhat similar thoughts re a reverse trike set up, as one wheel up front is always less stable where a three wheeler is most likely to experience risk of roll over.  That is, when rounding a curve during braking, as the forward weight transfer of inertia then places the effective center of gravity of the vehicle diagonally forward to an area outside of that transcribed by the three wheels base of stability.  Acceleration forces would effectively reverse this argument except for the fact that they are never as strong as the decelerative forces generated by hard braking- especially in a lower powered microcar.

Having the 2 wheels up front also gives more lateral space to slide the occupants between, and thus allows a shorter wheelbase and less mass for this concept.  I am not clear as to how your design allows for a reduction in length- please re explain.

A seat track linear bearing is certainly doable, as is the double geared steering input to activate the seats motion upon it, provided that some clever linkage is contrived.  You would need to mount the cable controlling pedal box to the seat frame.   Not sure if it would work better with you hanging off the steering wheel, or would require the more difficult engineering task taking it along for the slide.

Other challenges would include sealing the gap between stationary and sliding body parts for both weather protection and security. (Locking Kevlar gaiters?), and side impact protection.  The need for the latter might be partly mitigated by the fact that you would be sliding your self into the inside line of a curve in the road, when you would be most likely to experience an initial impact on the side of the vehicle nearest the outside line of the road curve.   This being the case, one could perhaps engineer a shock absorber of sorts connecting the seat assembly to the chassis that would allow for only lightly damped slower steering inputs, while creating a deceleration G force curve along the now fully extended length of the lateral seat assembly track that is designed to best suit survivable to its human occupants.  T bone impacts.. not so much.

I have at some time seen/ heard of leaning three wheeled scooters, and even 4 wheeled cars that allow for occupant leaning in curves in both concept and in limited production.  Did Al and I miss anything closer to our ideas that has already been tried?

[Barry]

I am not too sure that any driver (or passenger)would want to be sliding from side to side.
Taking a new look at Al's trike with one wheel up front.
Could you arrange the steering geometry so that as the vehicle goes round a bend, the whole front wheel arrangement pivots off-centre.
On a left-hand bend the steering would move the front wheel over to the right, almost creating a sidecar arrangement with the front steering wheel movimg out towards parallel with the back wheel.

?

Or a bit of additional rear wheel steering (as well as front) on the back of a reverse trike?

[AndrewG]

Wouldn't it be simpler to just lean the body inwards, rather than sliding it?  Wait, someone has already done that. 

Having been driven as a passenger in a Carver around a roundabout with the warning chimes bonging away (to tell the driver that full tilt has been reached), I can say it works.

[Barry]

Perfect Andrew.

I forgot that already have a vehicle which is almost identical! 

[Big Al]

Ah, the tilt body has been done. I was trying to think of something that had not. Not knocking it mind you. I like it.

We came via sidecars, so a staggered wheel arrangement seemed to be inclusive. A basic principle would be the standard sidecar set up. Save on cornering the driver goes outboard with the controls and the passenger ends up where the driver was. Clearly that can be improved on.

Moving the front wheel across to do the same sort of thing. Not sure how you could do that, but yes. An interesting alternative.

Two wheels at the front is more stable. I was looking for a way to overcomplicate the single wheel at the front, as I said, I never said it would be a great car!

Glad to see a bit of free thinking out there. Its good for the brain, you know.

In my minds eye the controls would need to stay in position relative to the driver. Of course if you use a front engine like a Bond Minicar this presents few problems. Indeed you could argue the rear of the car is steering away from the front portion. At what point would that be true? Should you go electric then the frond wheel could be an induction disc with a high powered magnet field round it. No friction, a donkey engine and inertia capture, fuel cell at the rear. Indeed if the drive units were mass produced, one at each corner for three wheel drive.

[AndrewG]

I think one of the cleverest three-wheelers was the American Trihawk, because it was so, so simple - to my mind, real genius is working out a simpler way to do something.

OK, it's a three-wheeled Lotus 7 wannabe and was only really created because US rules allowed a three-wheeler to avoid most of the legislation of four-wheelers, but it's still got a lot going for it.

Using a low powerplant (Citroen GS) and a low seating position made not only lateral stability but longitudinal stability very good. 

Having the engine cantilevered the other side of the two-wheel axle from the passengers meant the centre of gravity is close to the two-wheel axle, so the loss of stability from not having a fourth wheel is slight and the low CoG means there is no chance of tipping the car over the front axle in braking (doing a stoppie).

Using a front wheel drive powerplant means there are two driven wheels to transmit power and being front wheel drive means power understeer not oversteer.

It's no microcar but it did use modest power in a small vehicle to make something sporty, which I like.  Perhaps I should have bought a Berk T60.

[Big Al]

I always think, three wheeled Formula Ford.

Yes, a good one. Yes, simple is best. I am my own worst enemy when it comes to these 2cv derivatives. They work to well and it reduces the challenge of driving them. The engines good, rarely fails, once the coil system is sorted out. They are pretty quick, but economical. Most fail on weather protection, but that is not why most folk have them. If you want to go faster with the better chassis you can switch to a bigger engine.