As any reasonable person will tell you,
more wheels are better. Usually, we have to rely on the Phil Are GO! Graphic Blandishment and Photoshoppery Brigade to make this happen for us. Today's eight-wheeled homebrew car means the PAGGBPB can have the morning off to polish their clone tool skills.
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Super cool. Machinist Enoch Johnson went and built himself a car with eight wheels. The body panels look like they were all made from flat sheets of metal, relying on stiffening ribs to give them some rigidity. The little fenders are ribbed for his pleasure, too. This definitely keeps the car looking "retro", even for 1961, the year the article ran in Popular Science.
Eight wheels? If you need to ask why, you need to not ask why. It bears more than a passing resemblance to Homer Simpson's The Homer, though. If Enoch could think of something to stick on it, Enoch stuck it on. Wheels? You bet. Lights? Ooooh, yeah. An aoogah horn? Ding. Is it better than that car I never designed or built? Absolutely. Does it have more wheels than that car I never designed or built? Maybe. I haven't decided yet.
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4 comments:
You'll laugh...
You'll cry...
You'll hurl!
http://www.jayohrberg.com/American_Dream_100ft.html
http://jalopnik.com/5687360/a-home+built-eight+wheeled-sports-car-thatll-make-you-cry
http://www.rapidcars.com/exotic-car-limos/
http://www.seriouswheels.com/cars/top-Ford-FAB-Film-Thunderbirds.htm
http://davidszondy.com/future/Thunderbirds/fab1.htm
http://acidcow.com/cars/3563-8wheels_car_from_russia_5_pics.html
http://www.strangebusiness.com/content/item/114060.html
Rube Goldberg would be proud! Most of the mechanics is in all that rack and pinion. Glad to hear that all four wheels "turn at once" (as opposed to alternately I suppose). Eight-wheel brakes would be mighty cool. Hope it has power steering. Tires at "less than half the price as standard tires" X2 must save at least a few cents while they wear out twice as fast. The massive engine clearly sits completely behind the wheels and with the radiator in the rear the center of gravity must be awesome. Does the engine drive all four rear wheels or which two? Gotta love the convenience of having most of the dashboard gauges in front of the passenger seat calling for a co-pilot not pictured. There is a reason why rail coaches have eight wheels - something to do with being cast iron and running on rails. It's guys like this that make auto engineers and designers look bad.
Yep. I do wonder how this thing would handle at speed. I'm guessing it's pretty stable, but not super nimble. Also, I bet only two of those rear wheels are powered. Did anybody ever make tandem differentials sized for a car?
Thanks for the comments, guys!
Also, I'm reminded of those super cool Tyrell six-wheeled cars of the seventies. Apparently, part of the problem with those things was lack of available tires in that size. Pity.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02243/1976-March-2-4-0_2243004b.jpg
Here's a guy from Jalopnik test driving a Covini six-wheeler...
http://jalopnik.com/5818524/covini-six+wheeled-supercar-exclusive-first-drive
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