We’ve all done silly things on our birthday, right? Well, some are sillier than others, as PHer ‘sparkybean’ - aka Ian - can attest to. “It’s my birthday, it’s late, and I’ve got some worryingly persuasive friends helping me browse eBay”, begins his thread; apparently many different project cars were considered, one selected and bidding “ended at a ‘nah we’ll be fine I won’t win it anyway’ £32.”
This is what they - or rather, Ian - ended up with, Not one, but two Aixams. “If I’d read the listing I’d have known what was going to happen.” Expecting a single microcar, what actually arrived was “an almost rolling shell and one not at all rolling shell full of parts.” The listing was actually for enough parts to make a rolling shell, rather than just the complete shell…
Undeterred, Ian got the complete shell together. Then it was time to think of a powertrain. As standard, the microcar came with a 5hp(!) air-cooled two-cylinder diesel, which quite clearly wouldn’t do. Many other options were considered, including a Mini A Series, until Ian and his friends settled on a bike engine - and got back to eBay.
We’ll leave Ian to explain what’s happened since then, but it’s not hard to see the appeal of the output being boosted to 70hp in a micro car. One to bookmark, that’s for certain!