Retro Thing

1901: Porsche Builds The World's First Hybrid

Yes, we're talking about that Porsche. At the tender age of 26, Ferdinand Porsche built a four wheel drive gasoline-electric hybrid car.

Although famous for his conventional automobiles, Porsche got his start at the Béla Egger Electrical company in Vienna, Austria, where he designed an electric hub motor. Fatefully, he joined coach builder Jakob Lohner & Co. in 1898.

Porsche incorporated a pair of hub motors in the first Lohner-Porsche design, which resembled a carriage with electrically powered rear wheels. It was easy enough to create a four wheel drive version simply by adding two more motors to drive the front wheels, and that's exactly what Porsche did to create the Toujours-Contente, intended as a record-setting racer. The vehicle required almost 2 tonnes of lead acid batteries to run, severely hampering performance and practicality.

To solve the car's weight problem, Porsche added a gasoline engine that ran a generator to power the electric drivetrain; the world's first series electric hybrid. He even raced such a vehicle, which was capable of hitting speeds of up to 60 km/h. The constant quest to improve performance ultimately proved to be the downfall of his electric designs, as he concluded that internal combustion combustion engines were far better suited to automotive use.

Dr. Porsche joined Austro-Daimler in 1906 and eventual rose to become the company's managing director. By the late 1920s, Porsche found himself as a technical director at Daimler-Benz in Stuttgart. His vision of a compact, lightweight Mercedes-Benz vehicle wasn't popular, and he departed. Porsche formed his own design firm in 1931, eager to revisit his small car concept during the depression that gripped Germany.

Here's a look at his second attempt, the NSU Typ 32, built in 1934. After a few more iterations, the concept eventually became Hitler's "people's car" - the Volkswagen.

WWII intervened, and - ironically - the Beetle was reborn after the war in a ruined car factory under British control. Ownership of the Volkswagen company was eventually transferred to the West German government, and production increased from a mere 9,000 cars in 1947 to a stunning 575,000 cars by 1959. The people's car had finally arrived.

New and Remanufactured DeLorean Sports Cars

We've written hundreds of posts without once mentioning the delightfully different DeLorean DMC-12. Apart from the 'kitchen sink' stainless steel finish, its coolest feature is definitely the wonderfully smooth counterbalanced gull-wing doors. In fact, the first time a co-worker introduced me to his DeLorean, the first thing I did was repeatedly open and close the doors for a couple of minutes straight. It goes without saying that he didn't let me drive.

Once you get past the doors, the vehicle feels rather like a vintage kit car. It's low, the cockpit is snug but somehow accommodates even tall occupants, and the dashboard seems to have escaped from an early 1980s Chevy pickup truck. The 130 HP PRV V6 engine burbles with a tone more reminiscent of an old Pontiac Fiero than a Ferrari, and high-speed maneuvering is a tad less precise than the Lotus-designed suspension would suggest.

The company came to a tumultuous end in 1982, when founder John DeLorean was arrested and charged with drug trafficking. He was ultimately found not guilty, but by then it was far too late for the struggling auto manufacturer. It's thought that around 75% of the original 8,000+ cars built in Northern Ireland still exist today, and the unique style remains quite capable of turning heads.

Retro Thing reader Richard Van Luven pointed me to the DeLorean Motor Company (Texas). They're completely unrelated to the original DeLorean Motor Company and offer custom-built brand new DeLoreans starting at $57,500. The site also offers several slightly more affordable used DMC-12s selling in the $20,000 to $30,000 range.

DeLorean Motor Company (Texas)

The IIHS Crashes A Classic To Celebrate Highway Safety

The IIHS celebrated its 50th anniversary by crashing a 1959 Bel Air and a 2009 Malibu. The result? A great big, highly educational mess.

Read more about the IIHS 50th Anniversary Crash Test

Toyota's Historic California Plant Closure

Toyota just announced the closure of the New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI) production facility in Fremont, California that it shared with GM for a quarter century. It marks the first time in history that Toyota has mothballed a major manufacturing plant.

NUMMI built the Toyota Corolla, Toyota Tundra Tacoma truck, Geo Prizm and Pontiac Vibe, to name a few. The closure hits close to home for the Retro Thing team, since both Bohus and I own cars produced at the plant - his a Corolla, mine a Vibe.

In some ways, the death of the facility comes as no big surprise after General Motors pulled out of the money losing operation in June 2009, killing the Pontiac Vibe in the process. Still, the personal and financial impact will be massive with a total of 5,400 employees directly affected by the closure. Let's hope most find jobs in other Toyota facilities.

The 600: Honda's First North American Car

The Honda N600 reached North America in 1969. Powered by a 598cc 2-cylinder air cooled engine, it had a buzzy top speed of about 80 mph. The 600 carried a list price of only $1545 and got 40 mpg, but it was simply too small and underpowered for the American market.

Honda followed up in 1972 with the immensely successful $2,200 Civic, propelled by a revolutionary 4-cylinder that was clean burning and efficient. This played well throughout the OPEC oil embargo of 1973-1974, which saw demand for compact cars skyrocket.

Honda 600 too small for North America [driving.ca]
Japanese Cars: Then and Now

Okotoks Show & Shine Photos

A brand new vintage car show took place a mere 15 miles from my home last Sunday. Despite sporadic rain showers, several hundred classic vehicles showed up for the small town event. Best of all, I had the sense to take a camera. Here's a link to my Flickr set...

Olde Towne Okotoks Show & Shine Photos

Knight Rider Toy With A Lesson For TV Producers

In the early 80's, freewheeling Matchbox cars and Hot Wheels just weren't enough. Imagine one of your toy cars rolling down a tabletop – what happens when it hits a loose pile of pencils? So toymaker Schaper introduced a line of battery powered cars with real 4 wheel drive to trundle over such obstacles. They were terribly popular among the fifth grade set as I recall, so it was inevitable that competition would crowd the showroom at your local toy store.

LJN entered the AA powered 4x4 fray with their “Rough Riders” line based on popular TV vehicles. Besides a whole fleet of A-Team rigs, there was this model of K.I.T.T. The ol' Knight Industries 2000 might have been a historical curiosity, but this nation's appetite for 80's kitsch, and the drive to create needless sequels have kept the talking Trans Am alive in our hearts even today.

You may recall that NBC recently brought Knight Rider back in an expensive TV movie that introduced a new (destined to be short-lived) series about a boy and his frequently computer generated car. The pilot film was okay-ish, but the series was mysteriously abominable. How do you mess up the Talking Jumping Car Show? Perhaps NBC could have taken a few cues from this toy version of K.I.T.T.

Both have the crucial red “computer” light on the front. The large gear shift sticking out the top of the toy switches the toy between speedy 2 wheel drive, and rough & ready 4 wheelin'. In the TV world, that could have translated neatly into episodes alternating between breakneck chases and cheap off-road stunts. Now there's the premise for a show!

In my little impromptu head to head, the toy wins as much less a waste of time. It does not venture into emotional territory it clearly can't convey, does not try to resolve ridiculous issues in 43 minutes, and it's perfectly okay if while driving around it looks like it's made out of cheap plastic.

Let's not waste any more time on that awful franchise reboot. Clearly the toy is the more successful. I'll wrap up by pointing out that you can put the model car into freewheeling mode so that your other toy cars don't feel so bad. Another cool feature of the LJN toy version is the conical hub caps. These let K.I.T.T. do some side wheelie action just like in the old show. Just don't let any enthusiastic car customizers see this feature, otherwise they'll bolt 'em on to every real-life 80's classic car to come through the shop.

Related:

Anniversary of the 4x4 that helped start it all
Our report on the return of Knight Rider
Hot Wheels manufacturing errors

1969: GM's Clever Hybrid Was Decades Ahead Of Its Time

The Stir-Lec I was a hybrid gasoline-electric version of the Opel Kadett. It was a wickedly clever design incorporating a Stirling engine that could conceivably run on a wide variety of fuels.

A vintage GM ad enthused, "It's got an Opel body. But it's powered by electricity. The power plant consists of 14 conventional lead-acid batteries that you could buy down at the corner. The energy from the batteries is transferred to an electric motor which in turn drives the rear wheels. And the car can tool along at speeds of up to 55 miles an hour.

While the car's running, the batteries are constantly recharged by a small Stirling engine in the rear. It's so quiet that you can hardly tell whether it's on or off. And since the Stirling is an external combustion engine, the exhaust has no odor and pollution levels can be made very low."

GM eventually deemed this experimental series-hybrid program too complicated and expensive and it quickly faded into history. Of course, four decades later computer-controlled hybrids are all the rage.

Sadly, hybrid technology is too little, too late. Producing millions of gasoline-electric hybrids cars won't change the fact that we're running out of easy-to-reach oil. Besides, about half somewhere between 2% and 12% of the total energy consumed by a car is used to build it in the first place, so the best thing most of us can do is to look after our current ride while using it sparingly.

Hybrids and their sexy 'plug-in hybrid' cousins merely buy us a little extra time before the inevitable end of the Hydrocarbon Era. In the meantime, I'd suggest shopping for a few good pairs of walking shoes.

GM’s Electrifying Idea [inspired by Treehugger]

Alfa Romeo's Beautiful Flying Saucer

The 1952 Alfa Romeo C52 Spider is one gorgeous Italian redhead that was quickly dubbed the Disco Volante (Flying Saucer) because of its futuristic shape, which resulted in a drag coefficient of only 0.26. It was produced in three versions - the two seat Spider, a Coupe and a single seat open racer.

The Disco Volante was built on a space frame chassis and proved capable of reaching speeds of 220 km/h (approximately 137 furlongs per fortnight in Victorian units). Two examples were powered by 158 hp 2.0 L straight 4s, while a single vehicle was built with an aggressive 3.5 L straight 6. Both power plants were mated to a 4-speed manual gearbox.

All three variants are preserved in a couple of Italian museums, so getting up close and personal with this unique machine isn't totally out of the question. 

Breaking Wind: Wired.com's Fave Aerodynamic Cars
More Disco Volante photos [ultimatecarpage.com]

The Shadowy Origin of TV's Batmobile

When my father was learning English in the 1950's, his school provided copies of Scholastic Magazine. I found several issues recently, and while thumbing through the fragile yellow pages, I had to stop when I found this picture of the Lincoln Futura. The Futura was a concept car built by the Italian firm Ghia for auto shows. Unlike many concept cars, this one was actually road-worthy. Many of the Futura's ideas survived in the fins and rocketship stylings of later cars, but other kooky ideas like the bubble canopy made the Futura too radical for the road. It had a starring role in 1959 movie "It Started With A Kiss", and then was pretty much forgotten.

  Somehow the quarter million dollar prototype ended up in the hands of George Barris, noted Hollywood car customizer who legend says picked up the car for a buck. The vehicle was uninsurable, so simply rusted away in Barris' lot until 1966 when he got a rush order to build Batman's car for the radical new TV series. With a looming three week deadline, Barris added a few modifications to the Futura, and the Batmobile was born.

The Caped Crusader's cowled conveyance was not without its difficulties. The first year of the TV show put great strain on the aging internals, and brought on tire blowouts. In the second season of the show, the original Lincoln chassis was replaced with one from a Ford Galaxie (hence all the misinformation out there that the Batmobile is a modified Galaxie). Barris also took molds of the car to create a number of duplicates to tour the country, which they still do! You may have seen one covered with deep purple flocking - this was to hide the years of stress fractures on these fiberglass copies.

If you ever hear anything of the Futura now, it is only in reference to its cannibalization for TV. It's interesting to see a photo from 1954 when the hope still was to have the Futura roll off assembly lines to become the car of the future. Now that we're in the future, we've had several vehicles that bear the name "Batmobile", but there will only ever be one for me - and it has dragster parachutes coming out the back (to be tidily picked up by vans marked "Batmobile Parachute Pickup Service"!)

Exhaustive information at 1966batmobile.com

related:
When will the 60's Batman series finally come out on DVD?
Our favorite retro cars

Turn An 8-Track Player Into An Equally Useful CB Radio

Bellsound understood the need of the 1979 driver & lo-fi audio bug. 8-track was still on the scene, but what if you still wanted to be part of the CB radio technology scene? (for those kiddies who don't know what CB is, think of it as a static filled analog of Twitter without the irritating 140 character limit)

Instead of rewiring a car to prepare for the power of the Citizen Band, the Bellsound C-8 fit a whole CB radio inside an 8-track compatible adapter. Chuck the whole device into the Craig 8-track in your stylin' El Camino, and you can tell the whole convoy to stick to double nickel because there's a bear in the air.

"Smokey and the Bandit" lingo aside, I had no idea that this kind of thing existed. I've seen plenty of 8 track adapters that played conventional cassettes, but none that were actually a little broadcast station. It sounds like a neat solution to adding CB to your car, but you'd still need a wire running to an aerial so it's not a completely clean fix. Does this also mean that you could CB enable other 8 track appliances, like your phony fireplace stereo or educational robot 2-XL?

Unfortunately you could only use one of these super-70's abilities at a time. That means that you couldn't be listening to an 8 track of Conway Twitty while at the same time you were telling all your good buddies that you were listening to Conway Twitty. Life is full of tough decisions like that.

P.S. to all those websites that like to borrow our content, thanks for spreading the word about Retro Thing - just please don't refer to this commercially available 70's product as a "hack". It makes me crazy when you guys do that.

[thanks to Pocket Calculator Show for the picture.]

Fiat Returns To North America

 

Fiat hasn't had a North American presence since 1984. That's about to change, thanks to a recently announced strategic alliance with Chrysler. In return for a 35% stake in the ailing Detroit giant, Fiat will provide sorely needed small car expertise. I suspect the initial wave of vehicles will be re-badged Fiat compacts such as the Grande Punto and Bravo hatchbacks.

However, the most exciting news could be the arrival of the diminutive Fiat 500 on American roads. "We are examining ways and means to manufacture the cars in the United States," Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne remarked last June. "I don't want to bring it over made. I want to manufacture in [North America]."

Given the relative weakness of the US dollar against the Euro it makes a great deal of sense to build new facilities here to avoid higher European labor costs and the expense of intercontinental shipping. So far, the cleverly redesigned 500 has sold more than 250,000 units, proving that its success is more than simple nostalgia.

Fiat introduced the new Fiat 500 (the Cinquecento) on July 4th, 2007, exactly 50 years since they debuted the original Nuova Fiat 500 in 1957. The old 500 had more than its share of quirks: It was powered by a minuscule rear-mounted 479 cc 2-cylinder engine that whipped up an equally minuscule 13 BHP. It featured a pair of reverse-opening "Suicide Doors" and offered a canvas top that rolled back the full length of the roof. A total of six models were produced until 1975, and at only about 3 meters in length the 500 was perhaps the prototypical City Car.

The new 500's resemblance to the original is only skin-deep. For one thing, it's based on the second-generation Fiat Panda platform and comes equipped with a range of 4-cylinder engines (how often does one get to tout that as a feature?) including a 75hp 1.3L turbo diesel and a pair of gasoline motors that offer either 69hp or 100hp of fun.

Fiat is by no means the first European company to introduce an updated version of a popular classic: VW did it with the New Beetle, BMW is enjoying success with their slot-car inspired Mini sports car, and nearly everything introduced by Porsche these days seems to hearken back to their original designs.

I suspect Fiat will do well with their stylish compact lineup. Fuel prices will soon resume their torturous climb to record highs, and little gems like the 500 could add a splash of style to an otherwise frumpy Chrysler lineup.

The British Steam Car Challenge - 23 Cups Per Second

Reality is often far stranger than fiction. A case in point: the British Steam Car project, an effort to surpass Fred Marriott's 1906 speed record of 121.573 mph set in the unbelievably quaint Stanley Steamer Rocket.

The British steam car takes advantage of modern technology, and is clearly built for speed at the expense of economy and common sense. It burns liquefied petrolium gas, generating 3 megawatts of power to create a head of superheated steam that drives a dual-stage turbine running at 13,000 rpm and putting out 360 hp. That's enough thermal energy to boil 23 cups of tea per second, should you be so inclined.

Come to think of it, the propulsion system has more in common with a nuclear powered ship than a traditional automobile.

All this technology comes at a price: the beast weighs a monstrous three tons and measures slightly more than 25 feet long. It carries 60 liters of LPG to heat 140 liters of water - sufficient for a mere 3.5 minutes. There's no attempt to condense the steam to improve thermal efficiency. This vehicle is all about brute force and speed; the turbine simply blasts a massive cloud of insanely hot water vapor out of the rear end. It's as if the designers were trying to evoke a Flash Gordon-era space vehicle.

The team had intended to try a record attempt this year, but recently reported, "Sadly, we have missed the shipping date for reaching the Bonneville Salt Flats this year, but are continuing with our UK testing program. We are looking for alternative venues where we can make a World record attempt, but in the mean time, the next goal is to get the car running independently of the support rigs."

While the BSC team's target speed of 170 mph is well short of Andy Green's current jet-powered 766.609 mph record, the British Steam Car running all-out on the Salt Flats is sure to be a sight to remember. Oh, and need I point out that the car is painted a glorious shade of British Racing Green?

The British Steam Car Challenge [via Wired]

Bob The Builder Goes Nuclear

I wish Vanadium Corp. of America had actually produced this stunning nuclear-powered road-maker in the early 1960s.

Just imagine the thrill of terraforming America's beautiful but useless rural hills into productive ribbons of concrete at the touch of a single button. Sadly, they probably feared the arrival of mass-produced personal aircars before this magnificent eco-mangler could be rushed into production.

Unearthed in the Plan 59 archives

Camaro Cool

The much maligned second generation Chevy Camaro just might be cool again. It was introduced in 1970 and remained in production for a bone-jarring 11 years. While some possessed angry 454 cubic inch V-8 big blocks, the Camaro's weight gradually increased over the years and its engine displacement shrank -- just like many of us.

As the 1980s wore on, old Camaros increasingly became the butt of jokes until they were handed over to a final generation of grunge kids before vanishing from the road at alarming speed. And now, 27 years since they ceased production, they're suddenly desirable again.

Mister Jalopy of Dinosaurs & Robots fame bought this particular car in 2007 with the intent of doing a little work and flipping it. Over a year later, it's still part of his stable.

He recently explained its peculiar charm "Though the Camaro is considerably more solid than I found it, there are certainly still Easter eggs to be found. For example, there is a terrific example of farmyard welding to patch the exhaust system. With ample MIG wire still remaining at the site of the repair, the hole is mostly closed with just enough of a leak to produce a satisfying growl. The effect is particularly effective while driving through a tunnel - heavy on the gas with the V-8 roar echoing off the walls until you are bearing down on a hapless Hyundai only to lift off the gas to produce an epic backfire amplified by the close quarters. People get out of the way, I assure you."

I can only imagine the looks of contempt this chunk of automotive history gets as it pulls up beside a foofy gas-sipping hybrid at a traffic light. And -- sadly -- it's probably the greener option, since the environmental damage done through its manufacture is long forgotten in the mists of time. Besides, I doubt they make fuzzy leopardskin print seat covers for a Prius (please don't prove me wrong, dear readers).

It makes me wonder. Thirty years from now, which of today's mass market cars will be sought after by nostalgic backyard mechanics?

Some Expenses Spared [Hoopty Rides]