4 ms·
Over the past couple of decades there have been recreations of various small cars from the 50s, 60s and 70s. Like the Mini, the Fiat 500, Volkswagen Beetle. S
by bborud 6y ago
Over the past couple of decades there have been recreations of various small cars from the 50s, 60s and 70s. Like the Mini, the Fiat 500, Volkswagen Beetle. Sadly these recreations do little more than borrow an aesthetic. They're often relatively big, heavy and, sadly, expensive.
In particular the Fiat 500 was a historically important car. It gave families of very modest means mobility. The modern Fiat 500 is nothing of the sort. It is a design icon built for the somewhat affluent. It isn't small. It isn't cheap. It isn't simple.
A friend of mine has a mechanical workshop. His shop is where all the weird cars get fixed. Alfa Romeos, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, old Fiat 500s and 600s. There's even a DeLorean that is there from time to time. It is hard to overstate just how small the original Fiat 500 is. Or even old Bertone-designed Alfa Romeos from the early 1970s.
Don't get me wrong, I like the modern Fiat 500 enough to own one. In fact, I own an electrical Fiat 500 that was imported from California (since, at the time, the electric Fiat 500 was sold only in California and Oregon). It is a really half assed car - built to allow FCA to sell cars at all in these states. Small battery, no supercharger, and the traction control is so useless that when I drive it (without my disapproving wife onboard) it spins the inner wheel madly through corners. The TC on/off switch only controls the light inside the switch itself. I can't imagine it is actually connected to anything but the battery.
It is a lot of fun, but it isn't in the spirit of the original.
What is needed is for car manufacturers and society to rediscover the purpose of small, light cars. Mobility without the resource drain. The joys of simplicity. You don't need power steering, electrical windows, electrical seats, a thousand dashboard controls.
We also don't want all this closed crap in our cars. In the golden age of cheap mobility, cars were more open ended (because they were simple). There were more aftermarket additions and mods. You could get parts for all common cars everywhere. It was uncomplicated. You could get your car repaired.
My ideal car for the future is little more than a carbon fiber tub with the minimum of bits attached to make it a car. A standardised, cheaply manufactured carbon monocoque around which you can have a cottage industry of bits for customization and extension. A car built to be worked on that is light, strong, cheap, and takes advantage of modern materials, tools and insights.
- jaakl 6y agoLike https://mynobe.com/ https://mynobe.com/ ?
- kps 6y agoQuite nice. What I really want is an electric kei roadster, though. With luck we'll get them to coincide with the end of the ‘crease all the things’ fashion trend.
- bborud 6y agoI don't think three wheeled cars are a good idea. They have poor handling and the mid-mounted wheel robs the car of floor pan space. I would rather have a modern take on the original Fiat 500 brief. An affordable, super light car that can seat two adults side by side and two kids, has 4 wheels, few parts with excellent aftermarket access. Keep in mind that the 500 was a strictly _functional_ car in its time. Its design expression was very, very minimal. It was built for utility. The original Fiat 500 was ~500kg. A car with an electrical motor would of course have added weight for batteries, but with the use of more modern materials than steel for the load bearing structures you should be able to hit the 750kg mark. It should be possible to make it even lighter than that. As for design, I'd rather go for something that is "toned down and contemporary". Something that doesn't make too much of a statement so it can age well. In terms of design the Mynobe is kitsch.
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoI owned one of the original Fiat 500's in the early eighties, it was a lovely car. So simple but it worked perfectly.
- cstross 6y ago> What is needed is for car manufacturers and society to rediscover the purpose of small, light cars. Mobility without the resource drain. I have some sympathy for this, but not for the accident death toll associated with vehicles that lack crumple zones, collapsible steering columns, head restraints, seat belts, and other stuff we take for granted ... all of which contributes weight and complexity. It might be possible to revive this purpose if improvements in anti-collision software/hardware makes it cheap and light enough to fit to small vehicles: avoiding an accident is always preferable to having to survive one. But we're not there yet.
- bborud 6y agoWho said a modern day utilitarian small car shouldn't have modern safety features? If you look at the "supermini" class cars in NCAP, there are several 5 star cars. Sure they are heavy (~1000-1300kg), but they also represent great potential for improvement if one were to re-think this category. Right now the technologies that make sports cars and race cars lighter and stronger are expensive. Because composites are hard to manufacture cheaply. What if we were to invest in lowering the cost of cars made from composites? By improving process, by developing new design strategies and by focus on volume? (As for "impossible": a decade ago, most current Tesla owners wouldn't have dreamt of there being a desirable electrical car. Much less one they themselves would own)
- jacobolus 6y agoIf urban streets and street regulations were be modified to keep speeds under 30 km/h at all times and remove most of the SUV-type vehicles, small cars with less safety gear could be practical and safe for urban driving. Unfortunately the size/speed arms race in cars has left streets extremely dangerous for pedestrians, cyclists, and anyone who isn’t driving something weighing 1500+ kg. Perhaps if vehicle manufacturers/vendors were made partially liable for anyone injured in collisions involving their vehicles it would provide some pressure in the right direction.
- usrusr 6y agoI have little sympathy for the death toll routinely inflicted by distracted drivers of two-ton rolling fortresses upon those who leave the house without donning a tank. All those crumple zones are only helping the occupants. It's a form of violence once you start taking risk compensation into account. Personally I wouldn't mind it at all if drivers were a little more on the hook for the dangers they create. (and why did you think a rightsized car would forego seatbelts and had restraints?)