Vehicles with more or less fewer than four wheels are somewhat rare in the whole scheme of vehiclulardom (well, except for big trucks, I suppose). But vehicles that were modified at some point in the platform’s lifespan to alter the number of wheels are even more rare. The most commonly-known one is probably the Reliant Robin, which begat the Kitten with a new, rubber-donut-enriched front end. You might think the trail goes cold right there, but you’d be wrong. There are a good number of other vehicles that were tweaked to increase or decrease the number of wheels. It’s your job to think of and list them all.
Difficulty: Roughly equivalent to sitting through The Fall of the Roman Empire.
Learn your clichés, they’re your friends: Read the comments first and don’t post duplicates. Adding photos with standard HTML is good, but shrink the big ones with width="500".
Image Sources: kenjonbro’s flicker page, Wikipedia.
Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Modified Wheel Count
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Cushman Truckster
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http://www.rc-tech.net/cars2/cush/c11.jpg
http://sillylittlecars.com/saved_pages/assets-152/08be_12.JPG
This is going to take some getting used to.
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I seem to remember the BMW Isetta having a single rear wheel to be license-able as a motorcycle in some markets, and dual rear wheels in markets where it was more advantageous to have it licensed as a car.
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Image insert / test:
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Well, instead of four wheels, how about five?
The Saab Friction Tester models come immediately to mind. Built for airport use, these factory-modded Saabs have an extra wheel that drops down from the car to measure friction on airport runways, blah, blah, blah. Available in classic 900 through 9-5 models….-
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I can’t believe you’d be able to ride/drive/whatever that thing except as a skid-steer!
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I can dig it.
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Berkeley was another that had three and four wheeled variations.
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Not particularly difficult, but I should note that Superdry has a Washington State licensed Morgan 3-wheeler tooling around the downtown Seattle area. I saw it yesterday afternoon.
http://www.superdry.com/blog/2011/06/29/morgan-three-wheeler-superdry-edition/
Turns out that the US importer is only about ten miles from my house.
http://morgan3wheeler.us/-
Air-cooled Morgan cyclecars (like the current 3-wheeler you linked to) are not closely related to any of the Morgan four-wheeled cars. However, they did build “F-Type” water-cooled trikes for many years that shared much of the forward chassis with the four-wheeled “4/4”.
http://www.morgan-motor.co.uk/dealersites/dealer181/history12.jpg-
Yeah, so I fail at reading comprehension. I saw 3-wheeler and a single neuron fired, creating a chemical explosion in my brain.
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Is there any reason why the Citroen DS-based Michelin PLR wouldn’t qualify?
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Well that’s just excessive, now.
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Speaking of the DS, you could also go in the other direction in a pinch:
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I don’t know too much about it, but there’s an electric vehicle company in China called Sandi Motors which makes this:
http://www.sandicn.com/cn/Upload/PicFiles/2014.3.25_9.39.53_3888.gif
And it also makes this:
http://www.sandicn.com/cn/Upload/PicFiles/2013.6.29_8.47.20_4191.jpg
They definitely look like the same thing with different wheel counts. -
I shall try again, this time with 100% more reading comprehension.
I will go with the insipid G63 AMG 6×6, and its equally ridiculous cousin Brabus, based on the G-Class, itself a military vehicle modified for footballers.
I actually saw a Brabus last year when I was staying at London Bankside, near the Tate Modern. I unintentionally interrupted a photo shoot. They took a picture of it next to a Nissan Leaf at a charging station.
https://onedrive.live.com/embed?cid=C3CE97B816FC4087&resid=C3CE97B816FC4087%2130783&authkey=AAA1bMQdoTcX9Sc
This is what conspicuous consumption looks like. -
Let’s go for the Grinnall Scorpion (three wheels, two at the front, one at the back)
Later developed into the more generously wheeled Grinnall Scorpion 4, presumably for people who didn’t appreciate how Grinnall got it right first time. -
Let’s go for the Grinnall Scorpion (three wheels, two at the front, one at the back)
Later developed into the more generously wheeled Grinnall Scorpion 4, presumably for people who didn’t appreciate how Grinnall got it right first time. -
To lob in the softest possible softball of all time… DRW consumer-grade pickups?
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More low hanging fruit – Messerschmitt.
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The six wheeled Landrover Defender would qualify. While they originated as an aftermarket conversion the Defender 150 was part of the Landrover Special Vehicles catalog for many years alongside various special bodied 110 and 130 variants and armored vehicle
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Everytime Hoonatica comes up, I feel more and more inadequate in my knowledge.
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