Discussion
An idle thought...
... If you stuck a little modern petrol engine (like the Aygo/107/C1 triplet's triple) into a Lotus Seven style chassis, and left it set up for economy, and didn't go overboard on tyres:
a) What kind of urban/mixed economy would you be looking at?
and,
b) Would it be any fun? I guess you're looking at a well-balanced little rear drive car with 100bhp/tonne, maybe a little more.
I reckon you could have Prius-beating economy anywhere the aerodynamics don't matter too much, and of course you'd absolutely slaughter it on a construction materials/energy input basis.
... If you stuck a little modern petrol engine (like the Aygo/107/C1 triplet's triple) into a Lotus Seven style chassis, and left it set up for economy, and didn't go overboard on tyres:
a) What kind of urban/mixed economy would you be looking at?
and,
b) Would it be any fun? I guess you're looking at a well-balanced little rear drive car with 100bhp/tonne, maybe a little more.
I reckon you could have Prius-beating economy anywhere the aerodynamics don't matter too much, and of course you'd absolutely slaughter it on a construction materials/energy input basis.
I think it's also a bit of musing, "in the second-worst case scenario for cars, what would you do to still have fun?"
The only real thing that could put the kibosh on this sort of car is "safety"; it should hopefully perform reasonably well in car-vs.-wall tests due to light weight and long bonnet, but if legislation starts demanding airbags sprouting from every corner and enormous sacrificial structures you have problems. Mandatory, unswitchable TC/ESP would cut some (if not all) of the fun too.
The only real thing that could put the kibosh on this sort of car is "safety"; it should hopefully perform reasonably well in car-vs.-wall tests due to light weight and long bonnet, but if legislation starts demanding airbags sprouting from every corner and enormous sacrificial structures you have problems. Mandatory, unswitchable TC/ESP would cut some (if not all) of the fun too.
The worst case would be a complete ban on mechanised private transport, although I expect that's a bit of a post-democracy goal.
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