I almost bought a Quasar - a 2-wheeler with a Reliant engine. I'd discussed specification, cost and delivery with Malcolm Newall but I got transferred in my job and everything was up in the air as a result so I never completed the purchase.
Shame Scotroutes - always fancied one of them. How about an ecomobile now you are rich and retired?
I’d forgotten about the Quasar, very cool.
Kitten was a 4-wheeler though wasn’t it?
Yes it was indeed, but still legal to drive on a motorcycle license apparently.
When we were about 20 year old bikers we used to drink in the bikers pub in town (the News Room in Warrington). One of the big scary Hells Angels who used to drink there rode some great big 'Back Street Heroes' style chopper all the time, but also had a plackie pig (as you could drive it on a bike license). It was rattle-can sprayed matt black (obviously)
He was the size of a house. I don't know how the hell he got in it, but he used to fill it like Hightower in Police Academy
We're into page 2 and no one have mentioned the king of three wheelers, the AC Invacar Model 70, yes the same AC as in AC Cobra.
Yes I do watch HubNut's YouTube channel
It often feels that every other car I travelled in, during the 80s and 90s, had things like bailer twine holding the doors shut. My eldest daughter recently told me how difficult it is to start modern cars – do you put your foot on the brake or clutch before pressing the button
Does the poor girl only have the one foot?
how the turbo takes around two minutes to kick in and steers the car into the 3rd lane of the motorway unless you fight the steering wheel
Renault 5 GT Turbo, amirite?
One lad even had a weird three wheeler powered by a Villiers 150cc two stroke,we deliberately used to make him stall it so he had to open the bonnet to kick start it 😜
That would be a Bond Minicar. I knew someone that had one. e-start but also had a kickstart under the bonnet. Chain drive to the front wheel :o) Utterly brilliant !
Does the poor girl only have the one foot?
It's more that her friends have all been puzzled about why some cars need the clutch pressing, and some the brake. It's all so confusing! (It even says on our dash 'Press the brake while pressing the start button' or similar.)
Renault 5 GT Turbo, amirite?
No, Metro 6R4.
I wish. This was some second hand crappy Escort Turbo Diesel that had possibly previously been two cars, judging by the problems. My wife never found those handling characteristics because she never got the turbo to kick in, because it took so long. Sluggish, sluggish, sluggish, aaaaahhhahahh terror, the Escort cannae take it Captain...
There were always stories about them going on fire because of sketchy wiring/electrics.
Bet all that fibreglass burned well.😉🙃
My dad's caught fire on a motorway when I was less than a year old. He was a member of the Scimitar Club (RSSOC?) and had heard all the horror stories - he always carried a fire extinguisher, my mum ran up the bank carrying me to safety and by the time the fire brigade arrived he'd managed to put out the flames under the bonnet. He totally re-wired the car himself after that and it had no more electrical problems, but still used to overheat in slow traffic on hot days.
I remember a lot of trips to the local car spares place and ordering parts from Graham Walker... the car eventually died when one of the front suspension arms collapsed from rust and dumped the whole front corner of the car on the ground. Sad day.
Blinkin heck,thanks Davesport, just googled it and I can't remember it being that cool 👍.
It was so light though,we also used to spin him around the wrong way 🤣🤣
My dad used to tell me about the one his friend's dad had and used for taking bins of mackerel from St Ives to Newlyn.
When his mate would borrow it the passengers would take turns to bounce in their seats until it tipped or bounced off a hedge.
My grandma's live in lover had a selection of robins, he didn’t have a car licence, only the bike.
I remember being in several of them, they were ok, quite basic by modern standards, but not terrible by 1970s standards.
They had window wipers and a heater, that made them better than a bike for 6 months of the year.
I remember my dad telling me he was doing 80 up the M6 and a robin crawled past him, that must have been flat out.
Wouldn’t want to drive one now, but my memories of them are basically happy ones.
Edited to add:
Apart from the lunatic from my mums church, who had a reliant robin, with no doors on it. Also, it had to be held in gear when using second.
And no friggin seat belts in the rear.
One of the few times in my life when i felt genuinely terrified.
There's a Reliant often parked in the work car park. I think it's a Kitten...its deffo got 4 wheels.
Does my bloody head in when people say robin reliant!
You wouldn’t say Focus Ford would you…
Yeah agreed, but in the 70s/80s everyone called them Robin Reliants
Trying to think of other examples where we actually say it like this.
E-Type Jag
3 Series BMW (although BMW 325🤷♂️) And 5, 7
Series III Landy (although Land-Rover 88)
I'm out of ideas.
See, what you really want is this:
I had a Kitten which was great fun to drive. The turning circle was so small I didn’t need to do hand brake turns.
Then I dropped in a 3.5 litre V8 and had some real fun.
Out of all the cars I have owned it’s the one I would love to have back.
I was an MOT tester in the early eighties at one of the few garages in the west midland which could mot them.
I spoke to the customer and asked him pull his car to the front of the pit while I fetched the t bar Which allowed you to drive the car over the pit.
As I was fetching said t bar I heard a crunching sound as the guy drove his plastic pig into the pit.
As I recall if you drove one on a bike license you had to blank reverse off otherwise it was eligal.
My first job (YTS actually) was working in the Reliant dealer in Barnstaple.
Absolutely horrible things to work on. Half the inside had to come out before you could work on the engine.
Seem to remember doing a lot of cylinder head gasket work on them.
The real eye opener though was the first crash damaged one we had in, chopped the front body work off and rivetted a new one in its place, load of filler, some paint and good as new!
Didn't drive many but they were more stable than you think.
Still wouldn't have one for anything other than curiosity!
Oh yeah and they were pretty quick too
JB
Mum had a blue Robin as stepdad didn't then have a car licence. She drove us to holidays in the mountains of Wales in it despite the brakes being dire, but it was the 70s so us kids just rattled around in the back, seat belts, what seat belts.
ISTR seeing the underside of the fibreglass so perhaps the interior wasn't lined?
I always fancied one of these. But you could be paying £4000+ for one.
Top speed 82mph 😯
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invacar
Reliant also made the Scimitar and the Bond Equipe.
Page 2 and nobody has mentioned they also made the bodies:
Anyway, my uncle has driven them for years, he's in some obscure [s]far eastern[/s] French (Aixam) thing now but had Robins and Rialto's for years. Could cock it's leg if he was trying but the instability isn't quite as bad as folk make out.
Reliant Sabre
It’s more that her friends have all been puzzled about why some cars need the clutch pressing, and some the brake. It’s all so confusing! (It even says on our dash ‘Press the brake while pressing the start button’ or similar.)
It’s an additional safety feature, is all, so you don’t start the car in gear, or in the wrong gear, it just depends on whether the car is manual or auto. I get caught out all the time, because I’m often moving fifteen or twenty-odd cars from inspection to storage, of many different makes and models, so it’s easy to get it wrong. BMW’s won’t let you put the car into Drive if the driver’s door isn’t fully closed, that has confused me on more than one occasion!
It’s more embarrassing when you go to change gear in an auto, having just driven a manual, and stomp on what you think is the clutch pedal… 🤭
It’s an additional safety feature, is all, so you don’t start the car in gear
Thank you CountZero. I know this, because I have been driving for a long long time. However, trying to explain it to a know-all 18 year old is beyond me, so I resort to sarcasm and mockery, and boring descriptions of the motoring problems that she doesn't have to deal with. I ally should buy her a Robin and leave her to work it out. 😀
My dad had a Scimitar GTE, Ford V6 engine out of a Granada/Capri, rest of the running gear was Austin Rover what possibly could go wrong? The door lock broke and no spares available so it was unlocked for 6 months, the propshaft broke in deepest Wales, left it lying in the road, my dad walked to the nearest phone box and phoned the RAC for a pickup truck but they said they had to send a patrol man first to ascertain whether it was drivable, cue him hitting the receiver with it Basil Fawlty style to show them that it was in his hand rather than attached to the car, oh how we laughed!
I mate mate use to race them in a series on the stock car tracks around south east back in the late 90 / 2000's. He even made a streched one which he raced for a while till it went up in flames! lol.
Had great fun with them bloody simple things, rember we stood one on end in his garden and decorated it as a christmas tree one year lol
It’s more that her friends have all been puzzled about why some cars need the clutch pressing, and some the brake.
Do they not teach "depress both" any more?
This was some second hand crappy Escort Turbo Diesel
Ah, I don't recall such a thing. What was that, MkV vintage?
Ah, I don’t recall such a thing. What was that, MkV vintage?
Something like that.
Do they not teach “depress both” any more?
I think they only teach learner drivers how to start and drive whatever car the instructor has. I've described her lessons as being taught how to pass a test, NOT how to drive. It was maybe always the same. Anyway, I'm diverting the thread.
One of my friends bought a farm years ago that had a Scimitar gently rotting away in a barn. It wasn't there last time I was down there - I must ask him what happened to it.
I saw the remains of one down my main road after a police chase back in the 90’s, it was happily parked but got hit and wow a lot of pieces of fibreglass all over the road you’d hardly recognise what It was tbh.
I did nearly have a bond bug as a kid but my dad was against it due to the crap handling.
Having a normal trike and a tadpole trike, I can tell you that two wheels at the front (tadpole) is most definitely the way to go. Morgan please. I too did however marvel at the bond bug as a kid.
Davesport
That would be a Bond Minicar. I knew someone that had one. e-start but also had a kickstart under the bonnet. Chain drive to the front wheel :o) Utterly brilliant !
I had Bond Minicar convertible when I was a teenager. Underpowered with 197cc Villiers, 3 speed. It had a pullstart lever in the cockpit, and a perspex windscreen. The engine turned with the front wheel. There was no front brake, no rear suspension, and no doors. It weighed just over 300lbs.
The clutch plates were warped and it used to burn out frequently so I carried a bag of corks. It was ok one up, but two up needed a push start. I went through a period of selecting girlfriends for their sturdy legs and sprint ability rather than looks or other attributes. Fortunately it also had a hand throttle so we could start it with the throttle locked open (early cruise control?) and leap in.
My party trick was driving along on two wheels which led to its demise. I rolled it with my mate in it, then it caught fire while we were under it. As bulletproof teenagers that seemed hilarious to us.
My mate was so impressed he bought the remains, and he had a heap of fun in it too.
I went through a period of selecting girlfriends for their sturdy legs and sprint ability rather than looks or other attributes.
Brilliant! 😀
That would be a Bond Minicar. I knew someone that had one. e-start but also had a kickstart under the bonnet. Chain drive to the front wheel :o) Utterly brilliant !
Mate at school had one for hooning around the fields in. Great fun, then he got old enough to use it on the road. Didn't last too long. We went down a snow covered road in Abingdon and hit a small traffic island (little more than a big kerb) that had lost its sign in a crash a couple of days before. The front wheel/engine assembley kicked back and collapsed the front bulkhead. Never moved again...
That Bond thing reminds me of a "car" I used to see in the early 90s driving about. It looked halfway between that and a Reliant Robin but was single seater, I think it had a handlebar on a boom like a sit-up recumbent bike, rather than a steering wheel and may even have had a twist throttle. It was baby blue with a white top.
I think they only teach learner drivers how to start and drive whatever car the instructor has.
Not unreasonable - there are different starting setups around now (for no good reason, IMO) and it does tell you in the handbook how to start it.
The chap down the road from me has purchased a Reliant Kitten to go with his Rebel. It's currently in two tone, yellow top half over silver bottom half. It's individual, that's for certain.
There's a Kitten on eBay that if it wasn't so far away might have been an impulse buy.
That Bond thing reminds me of a “car” I used to see in the early 90s driving about. It looked halfway between that and a Reliant Robin but was single seater, I think it had a handlebar on a boom like a sit-up recumbent bike, rather than a steering wheel and may even have had a twist throttle. It was baby blue with a white top.
Sounds like the Invacar posted above somewhere, they were adapted for hand controls.
Sounds like the Invacar posted above somewhere
Ooh yeah that could've been it. The rear roofline doesn't look right on that one but it may have been a soft-top. This one was more like it:
When I was an apprentice a million years ago, the workshop manager had a Reliant Robin.
He rolled it and instinctively put his arm out the open window. He said he thought it was quite a low speed, but apparently not.
Police charged him and his hand was a mess.
I assume people called them Robin Reliants as it sounds more like a person's name
Invacars. Big in the 60s and 70s
Rangers v Celtic 1969
Surely a Kitten Estate or Fox is more stw...
Get a nice padded tailgate thing for the Fox.
