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| Morgan's modern trikes are actually fun to drive. |
NEWS of new trikes by both an American and Japanese company last
week shows that three-wheelers have never gone out of style and may even be
making a bit of a comeback in the West.
Tiny trikes were big in Britain once, with Morgan still making very
desirable — and fun to drive — three-wheelers that seems to inspire its riders
with ye olde spirit of derring-do and an urge to grow handle bar moustaches,
what ho!?
In China, India and Japan, three-wheeled vehicles have never gone
out of fashion since the first ones were adapted from military leftovers after
the World War Two, but in the U.S., trikes were always seen as a trivial pursuit
for tree huggers.
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| Paul Eliot's trike promises Americans to sip like a scooter, but crash with all the safety of a car. |
One such American tree hugger, Paul Eliot, has been aggressively
marketing his Eliot three-wheelers. Eliot last week said he is on track to sell
the first two-seater models in July, following a marketing campaign that showed
the trikes, which sells for $6 800 (around R73 000) across America.
As is the case with trikes everywhere, the main attraction of the
Eliot is a bike’s low fuel consumption without a bike’s dangers and discomforts.
Eliot claims 35 km/litre during highway driving, with a roll-cage design that
should earn it a 5-Star Crash Test Rating in the U.S..
At the Geneva Auto Show in Switzerland last week, Toyota went one
up on Eliot’s green spirit with its FV2 trike. Shown for the first time to
European buyers, the FV2 concept looks like a trike, has four wheels and rides
like a horse — apparently.
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| Not quite a trike, but as close as dammit, is Toyota's FV2. |
Designed to capture the spirit of Toyota’s fun-to-drive philosophy,
the FV2 does not having a steering wheel. Instead, the driver directs movement
using the same small torso movements a horse rider uses to steer a well-trained
steed.
Toyota says the FV2 will “develop aspects of trust and
understanding, similar to those a rider will have with a horse”. To further this
emotional connection, the FV2 also uses voice and image recognition to determine
the driver’s mood; it can suggest destinations using accumulated driving
history; and can present driving skills information to assist the driver. An
augmented reality (AR) display can be presented on the windscreen and the body
colour and exterior display can be changed at will.
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| The Morgan De Luxe was abysmally uncomfortable, just the way the Brits liked it. |
This is a far cry from the British trikes of the 1910s, in which
the only colour to change was that of the driver, from red and sweaty after the
starting process, to blue as the cold as you drive, even under the hood of the
so-called Delux Morgan from 1912.
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| The Daihatsu Midget, aka Trimobile in the U.S. |
In Japan trikes are still used daily, following the success of the
1957 Daihatsu Midget mini-vehicle. It was built after Daihatsu conducted one of
Japan’s earliest consumer needs surveys, which showed buyers in congested Japan
wanted a high-quality, lightweight, three-wheel truck.
The intriguing website dedicated to all things triplet,
www.threes.com, states Daihatsu had in 1957 alone sold over 80 000 Midgets in
Japan. “The golden years of the mini-vehicle and small passenger car had
arrived”, said the author, Sina Dubovo.
In 1959 the Midget was marketed as the “Trimobile” in the U.S. and
its phenomenal success at home and abroad enabled Daihatsu to expand and market
new products, such as the lightweight four-wheel truck “Hijet” in 1961, followed
two years later by the four-wheel “Compagno Van”. In February 1964, Dalhatsu
introduced a small, four-wheel passenger car, the “Compagno Berlina”.
China has also never stopped making three-wheelers. Most of them
are rugged load haulers, but there are also a few three-wheeled cars, some less
abysmal to ride in, like QingQi Group Motorcycle Company’s Xebras.
In India, Baja and Mahindra make good profits from building and
selling three-wheeler taxis which routinely transport six passengers with the
driver.
