Weird Cars Thread

[Ken1951]

Saw this over the weekend on the Barrett-Jackson broadcast. Powered by a 572ci Chev BB. Too weird for words!

 

[Blumlein 88]

Saw this over the weekend on the Barrett-Jackson broadcast. Powered by a 572ci Chev BB. Too weird for words!

Looks like a toy model in the picture.

Taking those kind of pictures is interesting. You put the car in a dark garage. Put your shutter to bulb and use a bright flashlight to paint just the car, and then close the shutter. Or at least that is one way to do it. Maybe they took a picture and just blacked out the background.

 

[Ken1951]

Looks like a toy model in the picture.

Taking those kind of pictures is interesting. You put the car in a dark garage. Put your shutter to bulb and use a bright flashlight to paint just the car, and then close the shutter. Or at least that is one way to do it. Maybe they took a picture and just blacked out the background.

It really doesn't do it justice as it was really large and oh so crazy.

 

[Ron Texas]

Saw this over the weekend on the Barrett-Jackson broadcast. Powered by a 572ci Chev BB. Too weird for words!

I would love to have one to tool around in Houston.

 

[Robin L]

1954: Gang of Messerschmidt Karos hanging around:

 

[Somafunk]

They resemble a horseshoe crab.

 

[mhardy6647]

1954: Gang of Messerschmidt Karos hanging around:

View attachment 183423

Squadron?

 

[nobodynoz]

In germany you cannot charge a car with electricity in an underground car park, you can understand why...

 

[Count Arthur]

In germany you cannot charge a car with electricity in an underground car park, you can understand why...

Zero emissions?

 

[Ron Texas]

Zero emissions?

The video shows a car catching fire. The US made Chevy Bolt has that problem. Proposed EPA regulations released this week will require 17% of all new US cars and light trucks to be EV by 2026.

 

[Harmonie]

 

[somebodyelse]

The video shows a car catching fire. The US made Chevy Bolt has that problem. Proposed EPA regulations released this week will require 17% of all new US cars and light trucks to be EV by 2026.

The 2019 Bolt is 35 times more likely to catch fire than the average 2019 car at last count, which isn't good. Then again the Citroen AX petrol models had a failure mode where they caught fire some minutes after the engine was switched off. It happened often enough to be notorious among firemen, but I don't have any stats to point to. Public awareness was zero if you didn't know someone it had happened to, and there was no recall. It does make me wonder if a petrol model would have had the same level of publicity as the Bolt.

It doesn't help that we haven't had as long to work out good ways to put out (and keep out) lithium battery fires as we have with petrol fires, but progress is being made. There's also an argument to be had over energy density vs. fire risk when manufacturers pick battery chemistry.

 

[Ron Texas]

The 2019 Bolt is 35 times more likely to catch fire than the average 2019 car at last count, which isn't good. Then again the Citroen AX petrol models had a failure mode where they caught fire some minutes after the engine was switched off. It happened often enough to be notorious among firemen, but I don't have any stats to point to. Public awareness was zero if you didn't know someone it had happened to, and there was no recall. It does make me wonder if a petrol model would have had the same level of publicity as the Bolt.

It doesn't help that we haven't had as long to work out good ways to put out (and keep out) lithium battery fires as we have with petrol fires, but progress is being made. There's also an argument to be had over energy density vs. fire risk when manufacturers pick battery chemistry.

Only 35? I'm concerned about whether electrification of transportation will go smoothly. There could be shortages of lithium, cobalt, electricity and charging stations. Other manufacturers could repeat the Bolt fiasco or some other version of it. 17% EV adoption rate is 5 times what we have now. There are long waiting lists for Teslas and Ford's new EVs.

 

[somebodyelse]

Only 35? I'm concerned about whether electrification of transportation will go smoothly. There could be shortages of lithium, cobalt, electricity and charging stations. Other manufacturers could repeat the Bolt fiasco or some other version of it. 17% EV adoption rate is 5 times what we have now. There are long waiting lists for Teslas and Ford's new EVs.

Only 35 so far - the mitigations seem to have reduced the rate but not stopped the fires entirely. I hope it's concentrated industry minds on the reputational and financial risk of a similar debacle, but it's hardly unique to EVs. We've had emissions cheating from multiple manufacturers, Toyota's recall for defective brake components, the Takata airbag recall affecting multiple manufacturers, etc. so I suppose I shouldn't get my hopes up.

There are always worries about what could go wrong in major changes, and you're right about some of the challenges to be overcome. I would hope that the 17% requirement will give the certainty around future demand to trigger the investment needed to make it work smoothly, but there's always the chance of foot dragging like the FAA and airlines over 5G deployment, or unanticipated issues. There are also potential opportunities to make more efficient vehicles (see the Aptera up thread), use parked cars as a grid tied energy store (so you could be selling power back to the grid at peak demand) and probably many more, or we could end up discussing what could have been.

 

[Ron Texas]

@somebodyelse 17% is not a fixed requirement. It is an estimate of how many EV's must be sold to meet the goals of the regulation. Emission cheating was quite a scandal. There is a serious problem in the US with owners of diesel medium and heavy-duty pickups doing engine mods to increase power at the expense of wildly increasing emissions. Have you heard of rolling coal?

 

[somebodyelse]

Ah - I misunderstood your #552. The manufacturer emissions cheating was quite a scandal both sides of the Atlantic. Messing with the engine mapping for everyday use, then changing it back again when it gets tested does happen here, but I think it's limited to enthusiasts so probably no more of a problem than older cars overall. I'm aware of rolling coal, but here it's an invitation to get pulled over by the police - not that that stops everyone. I think they'd have a few laws to pick from, but this seems to cover it:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1986/1078/regulation/61/made
Of course that doesn't cover the diesel locos trying to start on a cold day...

 

[Robin L]

1951 Buick LeSabre

 

[dasdoing]

Gurgel Itaipu,

brazilian electric car from 1974

 

[mhardy6647]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1491797108462010379

 

[Robin L]

V1954 Pontiac Bonneville concept: