Smallist

Finally, you can pay fifty grand for a camper! Design Within Reach offers a redesign of the space-age Airstream trailer. But for about half the money, you can get the sleek Airstream Basecamp shown below.

And if modern convenience is no object but money is, there are plenty of originals to be had, for much less.

Via Uncrate.

Collapsible, compact, grease-free, and branded to the hilt, the iXi bike is going straight for the cute jugular. Among its accessories are an old-school basket, a rear rack with neon lights, fenders, and a cup holder. It weighs just 26 lbs, and you can even hide a poncho in the frame.

Via Treehugger.

AutoblogGreen continues to follow the Toyota Endo, a concept car made real, which is expected to go on sale next summer. It’s their answer to Smart’s SmartForTwo model, coming to the US in 2008. No news about the Endo coming here though; I guess they’ll wait and see how the Smart does first. And no numbers on the Endo’s mpg rating either, but the ForTwo gets an impressive 46.3/68.9. But if Endo’s interior looks anything like the concept version (below), they’ll be a strong competitor among gadget lovers. Endo’s also a full 50 centimeters longer (at 300), and has a more accommodating hatchback. Also, it seats four. The original press release is here.

And incidentally, Smart also has a full EV in Britain, with a 72 mile range and a top speed of 70 mpg.

Remember how George Jetson could fold his bubble space car into his wallet? Well I guess Hanna Barbera couldn’t predict the need for emissions-free vehicles, or the law of conservation of mass. So we’ll have to make do with this folding suitcase bike. It’s expected to sell for $399. Via Treehugger.

Oh and don’t Google image search Jetsons without the filtering adult content, unless you want your inner child to be irreversibly damaged.

If you don’t have to get anywhere in a hurry, Duffy Boats will get you there cheaply. Their boats will cruise at around 6.6 miles per hour, and last about 10 hours on a charge, which’ll cost you about a dollar. The depicted model is a short 16 feet and perfect for a sunset cruise.

Or you could get the DSe Hybrid cruiser. At 12m, I don’t know if it’s fair to call this small, but it sure is cheap. The designers claim it will run at 6 miles an hour on pure solar power. And about 14 if you use the diesel generator. At dockside, you can charge it up for a dollar.

Who knew? When you reskin your Fiat 500 to look like a Porche 911, the result resembles HR Pufnstuf:

In Disneyland, the trains will now run on biodiesel. (via) Of course, they’re steam engines — so I always assumed they were running on half-sized lumps of coal. But you can heat steam with anything, and prior to this conversion it was just regular petroleum-derived diesel. Maybe Eurodisney will go nuclear.

Incidentally, the Disneyland railroad is a modern example of a narrow gauge railroad. Narrow gauge predates the locomotive, and was typically used for industrial purposes. It’s faster and cheaper to build, since it can make tighter turns and requires smaller tunnels. Today, they’re often tourist attractions, in the US, Wales, and throughout the world.

In Budapest, the narrow gauge Children’s Railway (above) is run by children. Adults actually conduct the trains, but children operate the switches and signals, take tickets, et cetera.

And those Disneyland trains? Uncle Walt bought them from a line in the Yucatan region of Mexico. Before they burned either diesel or biodiesel, they burned wood.

The oil and car companies may have killed the electric car, but these guys are bringing it back to life, old school. They’re taking a forklift motor, 8 batteries, and a geo metro, and it’s working. You can see their first test drive here.

See also evconvert.com. And this is via autobloggreen.

I don’t know, is this the opposite of smallism? Nah, it’s art, we’ll give it a pass. A giant toy model was constructed around a 1940 Ford for a car show.

Via BoingBoing.

For a car to sell these days, it’s not enough that it’s small. It has to be really small. According to USA Today, Chevy Aveo sales are up 44%. Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, Nissan Versa, and the Hyundai Accent also had sales gains, while the larger Sentra, Civic, Focus, and Elantra models fell a bit.

The article points out that Mazda3 sales are up, but I’d put it in the category of subcompacts. It’s similar in size to Volkswagen Rabbit, so definitely has a higher “cute” factor than the Sentra or Civic.

Meanwhile, the NYT seems to think small cars are gay.