"Is That Your Leetle Car?"

In the movie "A Good Year", the "hero" of the story gets stuck with a Smart Four2 or 4Two, whatever, that he drives through Provence (southern France) like a maniac and nearly kills his future girlfriend who is riding her bicycle along the vineyard road. I grew up around vineyards, drunk drivers, and I got to watch the tow trucks winch them out of the ditch after the ambulance cleaned up the biological mess from the wreck. It was mostly big American muscle cars that killed people. The little cars could make the turn. I learned a lot from the experience. Suspension and brakes are better than power. So I have a certain enjoyment of little cars. 

If you've got a little car, and its got good suspension and brakes, you can do something about the power, however. Here's one with a Hayabusa race motorcycle engine. 

Clown cars are fun to stick in movies. The tiny Fiat 500 with its 13 horsepower engine was one of the stars of Roman Holiday, along with the Vespa Audrey Hepburn rides (badly) through Rome. It is worth noting that Audrey Hepburn played a royal hiding out for a vacation, when in fact Audrey Hepburn actually IS a royal duchess of Belgium, slumming as an Actress. So the role was more ironic than you probably realized while watching it.

Anyway, there's lots of clowncars in the world, and most of them are fitted with engines just strong enough to get the car to the shops and back, and maybe make the school run. They're very much about economy. But they don't have to be. And some of them have interesting roots.

Before the Honda CVCC, there was the straight inline 4 engine they used. And that was based on a simpler machining than the inline 3 cylinder created by Triumph. An engine that continues to live today in various forms. Most 3-cylinder cars, like the Geo Metro, Chevy Spark, and quite a few others, are about the economy run, but are still based on the Triumph Motorcycle engine, which is currently water cooled and produces around 100 hp and makes very fast street bikes. I saw one on my walk today.

Like this one. Lots of disc brakes, but they're only as good as the rider and going too fast into a corner will still kill you. The engine, however, makes for interesting cars.

Take a crappy little Triumph or equivalent 1960 open top roadster/convertible. Instead of the 30 horsepower or less antique engine, put this motorcycle engine in there. How fast does it go now? Fast enough to need to convert from drum brakes to disc, I bet. And to think hard about frame stiffening so the power doesn't just warp the body every time you press the accelerator pedal. The tiny Opel Corsa that Hammond drives through Botswana is an original triumph inline 3, if you didn't know. How would that perform with the modern water cooled Triumph engine? And keep in mind that the Geo Metro has the detuned version and are rather famously durable.

What if you build a car like the Opel Corsa, only with carbon fiber and aluminum body and frame, but then painted it exactly like the 1956 cream yellow color and made it look exactly the same to casual inspection. Only its half the weight and 5 times the power. Can you imagine what fun that would be to drive on a mountain road? A lot nicer looking than the Smart, which ALSO uses this engine. As does the Nissan Micra. And the Ford Focus EcoBoost engine is this too.

My car is old. I don't know how many more times I'm going to be fooled into fixing it, only to find another expensive repair is needed. I'm getting pretty tired of spending big money on the car that I keep expecting to fail when I need it. I really don't know what it needs to keep working. And I'd love to have a little car that can lurch forward when I stomp on the gas. I miss that. A little Opel Corsa with a sleeper, all carbon fiber and motorcycle engine underneath would be a real hoot. Its not like I'm in the time of life to attract women. I'm more in the "repel women" stage of life. I don't need a car that appeals to them. I need one that runs and I enjoy driving for its own sake. And I'd like to have something worth chuckling at, something like me.