Hunslet bubble car

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

There’s an article about these in latest ME. Way back in the 70s, the R&ER engineers (me and a chap called Ian Smith) built a ‘scooter’ with an engine out of one of these. Go cart would be a better description, 4 wheels, a frame, an engine and a seat. It was frighteningly fast, and got quite a bit of use, but has fallen by the wayside. The single reverse gear was a disadvantage, in reality it had to be manhandled through 180 degrees to get back from where you’d gone, but it weighed so little one man could do it. I suspect it still exists.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

The article mentions the Bond, actually a brand-name used by Sharps Commercials.

I had two of the Bond ‘Minicars’, resembling a rather angular Reliant, and perhaps slightly longer.

These had Villiers motorcycle 2-stroke engines, 200 or 250cc I think by year of manufacture, chain-driving the single front wheel by mounting the engine and gearbox unit on a swinging-arm controlled by a shock-absorber, projecting forwards from a vertical, tubular column that carried the steering worm-quadrant at the top, and the gear-change linkage down through it.

The gear-lever on the steering-“column” (horizontal) was linked through to the original gear pedal on the gearbox.

6V electrics, with a massive rotor on the end of the crankshaft, for the Siba ‘Dynastart’ whose starter-motor / dynamo function was set through the ignition-switch wiring. This allowed reversing by starting the engine backwards, via a gated second switch position, but I forget if this used two contact-breakers or a single one with TDC timing.

The steering position was a bit odd, with the steering-wheel in a vertical plane but its shaft at an angle to the bodywork to reach the quadrant.

The two variants were the 4-seater saloon, with rear luggage space reached by a side-opening door; and van, with just two front seats. Proper (for the day) locks on the two front-only doors, a pair of square-hole type latches on the rear. You could open them without damage using just a wide screwdriver! I blanked them with screws and nuts.

Pressed-steel chassis members, aluminium floor and side-panels to waist height, fibreglass above that.

…

Sharps were also the builders of the ‘Bond Bug’ in the early-1970s.

Not mine, but a preserved example of a different form of the ‘Minicar’: mine was the full-height estate pattern as I think the partially-eclipsed green one is:

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Co-incidentally, the general manager of the R&ER back then had also been salesman for Bond minicars, and still does hold the record for driving one from lands end to John o groats. This achieved back in the 50s. I doubt it will ever be eclipsed, even tho we now have motorways. He reckoned it was flat out lands end to Preston, where he stopped for a couple of hours kip whilst the mechanics changed the engine, then flat out again. He also claimed to have been the first public driver on a UK motorway (Preston bypass) again in a Bond. I remember his driving style, best described as digital, on or off both brakes and throttle

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

Bond Bug

Reminds me of this one

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Womderful! A “Funny” *  car so modified in form it’s hard to recognise what inspired it!

 

*(As this class of dragster, lampooning a well-known ordinary street car, is called, at least colloquially)

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

Strictly speaking an Altered and this one was a proper nutter car.

History here apparently Reliant made him an ultra light body

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