Permsteading.com

Yeah when I was serving my apprenticeship, I built a go kart using a Vespa scooter power unit and transmission. Two wheels at the front with the powered wheel at the back. Man that thing could fly and if you pushed it hard into a curve, you could sling the back wheel out and power slide right around the bend. I once drove a Morgan three wheeler and it was one of the smoothest drives. I've often wondered if building an electric vehicle with just one driven wheel would be more efficient. There definitely wouldn't be any hassle with a differential and all the power is going into one wheel. I may have to do some more research into this.

Oop,s double post

Here is one of the best 3 wheel designs. They ended up going out of business but the car was a good one. They started with no pre-conceived ideas and ended up with a really low drag coefficient, a veh that would do 80 mph out on the high way, it looked sexy, it looked like it was out of the space age actually, great little car.

http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/i ... &va=aptera

Now that is sexy! It looks like something Q would make for 007. Probably doubles as a submarine. Actually, I've been pondering how I could enlarge the kart design I had into a vehicle suitable for the road. The guy I was apprenticed to was an off road motorcycle sidecar trials champion. His bike was sponsored by a large motorcycle dealer but he built his own sidecars. He let me use the off cuts of square tubing to make my chassis. He classed it as welding practice for me. I could scale up the tube dimension and basically make the same design.

Wow,that Aptera is nice! Graham, what a cool experience and skill to have.

It is unfortunate that the company did not make it and went out of business. The Aptera was a Great little electric car. It had an unbelievable drag coefficient, it had a great range of 80 miles per charge, it was sexy, it was sporty, it was very capable of reaching and maintaining high way speeds [ 80 mph top speed ] a great little electric car. Maybe ahead of its time, maybe just ahead of the free money from the Government that would have gotten them up and running. Jay Leno liked the car so much that he bought one for his collection. Jay says that he does not collect cars, he collects technology. This car was a break through in the development of the electric car.