The Microcar & Minicar Club is a resource (and point of gathering) for people with interests in small cars -- specifically, cars powered by engines smaller than 1000cc's, and cars that are less than 11 feet long (some argue that it shoud be less than 10 feet long, but we're flexible).And we have always included any three-wheelers -- even if they are bigger than the specs outlined above.
Based on that, we decided that a one-wheeled car would definately fit with the club. But who's ever heard of a one-wheeled car?
Well, there was a really interesting posting on Hemmings Auto Blogs last week that covered that very topic. It turns out that Charles F. Taylor of Golden, Colorado, decided a one-wheeled vehicle would be better on mountain trails than a four- or even a two-wheeled vehicle would be. And he went out to prove his theory by designing and building a series of prototypes of his one-wheeled car. Apparently he came up with the idea in 1939 -- and worked on his design and prototypes until 1965 -- filing patents in 1956 and 1964. To prove that he knew a little bit about what he was doing, he filmed his prototypes in action. Very cool!
1 comment:
It looks like we might see one of these one-wheel vehicles on the road again. (Gee...how would you get the Department of Motor Vehicles to inspect it?)
The Hemmings article got a response from Taylor's son -- and he has many of the components of one of the prototypes, and would like to put it together again.
http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2008/06/25/the-taylor-one-wheeler-lives-and-may-rise-again/
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