2strokes are nowadays much better for small vehicles, they just need some ditech-, purejet- or tdsi-direct-injection-technology (all the brand names above are one and the same thing, every company simply "invents" a different name for it).
@@klausbrinck2137 Yes, DI would be great. I believe DKW and Bosch collaborated in the early 1950s and developed DI two strokes way back then. It must have proven too expensive at the time.
The basic design-idea and its body-material is one of the best of all microcars, but being british, everything else is wrong: Why does a scooty-sized-car needs fake bumpers ??? Do scootys have bumpers? Of course not, cause a scooty, being similarly sized to a human, doesn´t need bumpers, or else, humans would also have to carry bumpers... 8,5hp from 200cc, seriously? That´s more like 35cc with an axhaust-expansion-chamber... 263kg for the tinyest microcar with modern-lightweight fiberglass-body (u sure it wasn´t 2-inches-thick-security-glass???)? It should have been max 70-80kg. Nice size and wheel-size, too. Looks roomy inside. Great 2-seat arrangement, missing just a solution for a driver´s-seat backrest, that doesn´t hinder the passenger to get in or out of his 2nd-row-seat. Hence roomy enough, the passenger´s-backrest should be further forward, for a more comfortable passenger´s-spine-position. Horrible door-hinges and all-around lights, but technology couldn´t offer less intrusive lights back then. The spare wheel is useless, scootys/motorbikes don´t carry one too, and there´s a reason for that (this thing has WHEELS, u don´t have to carry it away, simply push it, and it will roll to the mechanic/home). Generaly, the solutions look like this was a DIY-one-off in some russian village 3000miles from the next russian village, in the earliest 20th century, instead of a 1960 western european factory-production (in other words, british, but "for-the-non-wealthy"), but in a country where everyone drives just Rolls and Bentley, why does this have to be better, right? But the general design idea is one of the best I´ve seen.
Some very interesting observations there. I think the bumpers were more of a styling exercise, but also adding some rigidity to the panels. The small engine, Villiers 197cc, was a unit which was readily available at the time. Performance would have been considered adequate for the time, in what was essentially a city car. The Scootacar, like all microcars of the time, needed further development, but many of these manufacturers were very niche, compared to companies like Ford or General Motors. The Scootacar had a fairly short production run, by a company more experienced in producing locomotives. We look at these small vehicles in the twenty first century and see all their shortcomings, forgetting these cars are sixty years old. I wonder what they would have been like, if they had been developed.
I am building my own little microcar and believe me when you start off you think you can make it as light as a feather but everything adds up! I've got mine down to 75 kilos plus the body which I'm still building but that should be under 10kg.
Charlie, my grandson, loves the Messerschmidt.
I love these little rides. It is the direction that cars should have taken and that is especially true today (4 strokes would be better or diesel)!
2strokes are nowadays much better for small vehicles, they just need some ditech-, purejet- or tdsi-direct-injection-technology (all the brand names above are one and the same thing, every company simply "invents" a different name for it).
@@klausbrinck2137 Yes, DI would be great. I believe DKW and Bosch collaborated in the early 1950s and developed DI two strokes way back then. It must have proven too expensive at the time.
@@klausbrinck2137 By the way, have you seen the original Toyota iRoad? That is an engineering gem.
Winner: Hunslet Scootacar.
The basic design-idea and its body-material is one of the best of all microcars, but being british, everything else is wrong: Why does a scooty-sized-car needs fake bumpers ??? Do scootys have bumpers? Of course not, cause a scooty, being similarly sized to a human, doesn´t need bumpers, or else, humans would also have to carry bumpers... 8,5hp from 200cc, seriously? That´s more like 35cc with an axhaust-expansion-chamber... 263kg for the tinyest microcar with modern-lightweight fiberglass-body (u sure it wasn´t 2-inches-thick-security-glass???)? It should have been max 70-80kg.
Nice size and wheel-size, too. Looks roomy inside. Great 2-seat arrangement, missing just a solution for a driver´s-seat backrest, that doesn´t hinder the passenger to get in or out of his 2nd-row-seat. Hence roomy enough, the passenger´s-backrest should be further forward, for a more comfortable passenger´s-spine-position. Horrible door-hinges and all-around lights, but technology couldn´t offer less intrusive lights back then. The spare wheel is useless, scootys/motorbikes don´t carry one too, and there´s a reason for that (this thing has WHEELS, u don´t have to carry it away, simply push it, and it will roll to the mechanic/home). Generaly, the solutions look like this was a DIY-one-off in some russian village 3000miles from the next russian village, in the earliest 20th century, instead of a 1960 western european factory-production (in other words, british, but "for-the-non-wealthy"), but in a country where everyone drives just Rolls and Bentley, why does this have to be better, right? But the general design idea is one of the best I´ve seen.
Some very interesting observations there. I think the bumpers were more of a styling exercise, but also adding some rigidity to the panels. The small engine, Villiers 197cc, was a unit which was readily available at the time. Performance would have been considered adequate for the time, in what was essentially a city car. The Scootacar, like all microcars of the time, needed further development, but many of these manufacturers were very niche, compared to companies like Ford or General Motors. The Scootacar had a fairly short production run, by a company more experienced in producing locomotives. We look at these small vehicles in the twenty first century and see all their shortcomings, forgetting these cars are sixty years old. I wonder what they would have been like, if they had been developed.
I am building my own little microcar and believe me when you start off you think you can make it as light as a feather but everything adds up! I've got mine down to 75 kilos plus the body which I'm still building but that should be under 10kg.