Bubblecar vs Motorcycle Engine Powered Car

So I don't know if you knew this, but there are cars powered by motorcycle engines. The original Fiat 500 was a 2-stroke 500cc motorcycle engine. So was the original Saab 92, which looked neat but was actually really awful, as James May explained in his review on Top Gear.

Motorcycle engines are small and rev high and can be geared in such a way that the vehicles they power will do the job, provided the vehicle is light and the driver isn't in a hurry. There is such a thing as TOO LIGHT and NOT ENOUGH OF A HURRY, however, Mr. Clarkson.

I'm pretty annoyed with the weight of modern cars. Yes, they're very safe, and built to survive crashes with really terrible closing speed energies, head ons at 80 mph each, or 160. Realistically, you'd die from that, air bags or not. The energies exceed your cellular structure's ability to hold together in your brain. You'd be scrambled eggs and not in a nice way. Yes, there are motorcycle powered cars that meet this safety standard. Like the Smart 4Two.

That sounds amazing, right up till you find out that they're really expensive, more than most bubblecars, and owners tend to rev them to death, using the "drive it like you stole it" mindset.

This leads to Yahoos replacing the little efficient motorcycle engines with a Hayabusa engine and doing burnouts, as above. It rather defeats the purpose.

However, as poverty grows and roads are left to erode, and they are, make no mistake about it, speeds will come down and suspension travel will become a serious requirement again. I see a future for Subarus that won't be shared with vehicles using ridiculous rims that dent in every pothole. Even Jay Leno has commented about this. California roads just aren't what people want them to be. They are becoming more like the Baja 1000 and less like the smooth LA freeways of the 1990s.

As roads get slower, crash speeds drop so the need for 160 mph head ons is lost. Eventually real freeways will max at 60 mph, 10 over, because the road surface will be so full of holes going faster is suicide, and 50 mph when there are chunks of road flying out the size of a coffee cup? Not too bright. It becomes really dangerous and some of those bumps will flip a car or cause a pileup at speed. Enough of those accumulate, the foolish drivers cease to be a problem to others because their cars are wrecked and they've died. This is why a light vehicle with a nice bouncy suspension and a small engine makes sense again. I would like to see laws passed allowing these experimental vehicles on California roads and highways, going around CARB instead of through them, which generally murders innovation and has stopped my favorite motorcycle from being allowed on the roads here (The Suzuki TU250X).

Yesterday, as a test, I used Forza Motorsport 4 to drive some nasty 70's musclecars. Big and loud, and a suspension so bad you kind of barged your way around hoping to stay on pavement some of the time, and really worse than the Koeniggsegg. These cars were terrible. I'm amazed anyone survived driving them in the real world. Of course, in my childhood lots of people DIDN'T survive on those twisty roads, so Jeremy Clarkson's smug accusations towards Detroit are largely justified. Just remember he's equally insulting towards British cars of the same time period.

While the Honda Civic was originally powered by the 4 Cylinder engine they put into their highway cruiser motorcycle, Suzuki built Triumph's 3-cylinder water cooled triple into Geo Metros and their own tiny cars and jeeps, now gaining ground as Ford's Eco Boost diesel, of all things. I have to wonder if that engine will ever go into something lighter and more fun that isn't shaped like an Egg? One can hope.

Detroit tends to be a little too precious with their economics while continuing to make 70's Musclecars and Trucks nobody can afford to drive so don't sell. Why can't they build a small sports car cheap? The nearest dealer has a line of new Chargers and the other one has a line of new Mustangs and gasoline is headed up 50 cents a gallon again. A commuter car only needs to hold a couple bags of groceries. And leave out the fake back seat already. Stop pretending it's a family car. They're doing the right thing with the Ford Fiesta and if the Focus lost about 500 pounds it would drive more like a sports car and less like a short station wagon. I consider that important. The kick in the pants from the Fiesta's power to weight ratio and manual transmission is part of what makes it fun. Station wagons are hard to cool on a hot summer day, drive like they're heavy from all that high weight from the passenger compartment to the tailgate, and many people around here put a roofrack on it to show they're sporty type, ignoring that the rack puts so much drag on the car they've lost 3-6 mpg showing off.

But a bubble car doesn't have to suck. The Ford Fiesta scored Car and Driver and Road and Track car of the year. It has a 200 hp, manual transmission straight 4, with a turbo. Fun. Not exactly motorcycle, but most straight 4 engines are based on motorcycle 4's back in their history. When you go further back, there are more examples.

Fiat 500 was an air cooled 500cc motorcycle engine powered car. This made the VW Beetle seem positively powerful.

The Citroen 2CV was also a tiny 2 HP engine. They built the doors wrong so the windows only open with flaps and you can't really lock them, which turns out not to be much trouble because nobody sane wants to steal one. This is the car from which you get the term "lemon law" meaning Bad Car. They are hard to kill permanently, but rarely reliable enough to trust so are scattered around Southern France.

Most "City Car" class vehicles are powered by motorcycle engines. They only really seem to be used in Tokyo and London, since Tokyo has no room to park and London is populated by communists taxing each other and hogging parking spaces with electric hybrids etc. Very silly.

The thing is, you don't have to have a motorcycle engine powered vehicle that sucks. You can have something fast and fun.

Lots of tiny little cars can be powered by motorcycle engines and rev high or not as the operator decides. Who wouldn't want their own Opel Cadet if you can't go faster than 40 mph because all the roads have gone to gravel and dirt anyway? It is all very interesting. People think "Oh that will never happen. I won't allow it!". We know those kind of blowhards that are nowhere to be found when the bill is due. In the real world, tar is expensive and that's what roads are made out of, as well as gasoline, and gasoline has a better markup. So someday you'll be able to buy expensive gasoline but won't be able to find any paved roads to drive on. And someday is sooner than you think. Worst economy since 1931.