Smallist

Actually it’s Japanese for “mileage” and English for “mania”. Japanese Prius hackers are getting 116 mpg, through a series of techniques that make hypermilers look like sissies. According to the Chicago Tribune:

Toya, a 56-year-old manager for a tofumaker in central Japan, puts special tires on his Prius, tapes plastic and cardboard over the engine, and blocks the grill with foam rubber. He drives without shoes and hacks into his car’s computer — all in the pursuit of maximum distance with minimum gasoline.

The shoelessness sort of caught me by surprise. It has nothing to do with crooked baseball — Toya needs to pulse the engine delicately, with his big toe, for maximum efficiency. The technique is called “pulsing and gliding.”

Via Treehugger.

In the UK, there’s already a small, cheap electric car available for commuters. Called the G-Wiz, and based on the Indian Reva, it has a 48 mile range (for the AC version) and a maximum speed of 45 mph. In India, because of warmer temperatures, the range is considered 68 miles. The site says that the AC model can be upgraded to lithium ion batteries, but there’s no range data given for that. But don’t worry, with global warming, we’ll all be enjoying better mileage in our electric cars soon enough.

The best part about the UK model is that it gets Londoners out of the dreaded congestion charge of £8/day. Also, the city provides free charging for the vehicles. When you get home, charging will only cost about 1.3 pence per mile.

Reva has also announced they’ll be bringing the cars to Germany next.

Remember the Chevy Trax from last week? The other two cars are out. So now alongside “Trax”, we have “Beat” and “Groove”. Get it? They’re all terms that the young people use to refer to their rock and roll. Either that, or they’re terms you use when your car gets stuck in a rut.

The Beat is inspired by the racing cars in movies like “The Fast and the Furious.” Why you’d name a racing car “beat”, I don’t know. The interior designer, presumably under physical threat from the PR team, says “The sound system and the pop-up juke box will always make you the life of the party.”

The Groove’s press release likens the car to a helmet, so I can only assume they’re aiming for the special ed market. It goes on: “Chevrolet Groove concept is contemporary and funky, but evokes classic Chevrolet heritage design cues like an upright windshield and prominent fender flares that give the Groove a strong, sturdy stance reminiscent of a retro hot rod.” Maybe it’s me, but don’t upright windshields and fender flares also lower your efficiency? If you want something with shitty mileage, can’t you go with Chevy’s standard offerings?

But most irritating to a Smallist should be this quote from the designer: “I wanted to get out of the mini vehicles stereotype that is characterized by a weak, insecure and ‘cute’ appearance, so that consumers can feel safe just by looking at the vehicle.”

Ugh. People buy small cars because they’re small, not because they look big. Does a Cooper look insecure? I don’t think so.

For good measure, here’s the Trax info.

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: as long as you think you’ll be waiting more than 10 seconds. It’s true that in the days of carburetors, it took lots of gas to start an engine. But with fuel injection, it’s a mere drip. In fact, in some Swiss cities, it’s the law to turn off the car at stoplights.

This info is from Celsias, a blog about global warming. (they’re against it.) After getting vague answers from the EPA and even Click and Clack, Mounties from the Canadian Office of Energy Efficiency finally gave a the benchmark number. Apparently they’re into it. So now, there’s a “homemade hybrid” anti-idling movement afoot. Cool!

I’m sick of blogging about cars, but I suppose the Naro deserves a mention. Sorry to be an mpg snob, but is 100 really that great for a scooter with fenders? Still, their other promises sound appealing: A two-passenger 100 mpg version, and a delivery van. I’d love to see their taxi rendering come to fruition on the streets of NYC.

And the cornering is the nifty thing about these. On a sharp turn, it looks like the whole chassis leans into the curve. More about the design at their website.

Chevy wants to compete with Daimler Chrysler’s Smart cars, set to debut in the states in 2008. So they’re testing the waters with a trio of minicar designs, starting with the Trax. There will be two other designs, and to cheese things up a bit more, they’re going to have the young people vote for their favorite model… wait for it… online! GM is getting down with Generation Y! It’s like American Idol meets MySpace or something!

Still, I eagerly await the other two contestants. I want Chevy to make a great small car. The US needs small cars, and they need a hit. But this just seems hopelessly half-assed, like those commercials with Ronald McDonald snowboarding. Chevy, change comes from within. You don’t need a PR campaign, you need an 80’s movie montage.

The Smart car (above) is much cuter, and gives me the sort of product lust normally associated with Apple stuff. At 40mpg, the fuel economy is still a little ho-hum. But perhaps their focus on the product life cycle makes up for it, in the grand scheme of things.

Tiny cars are not a new invention. Microcars, or “Bubble cars,” were all the rage in post-war Europe.

The trend started when the Italian refrigerator manufacturer ISO spA decided that small cars were in greater demand than new fridges, due to the fact that everyone had to get somewhere and no one had food. With a bulbous design based on Mussolini’s forehead*, the Isetta microcar became an immediate hit. It was manufactured by auto companies throughout Europe, leading to a series of local flavors. For instance, BMW moved the headlights to the fenders. The Isetta was also Steve Urkel’s car in Family Matters.

Around the same time, the boys at Messerschmitt had nothing to do, the Luftwaffe being on hiatus after finishing a 10,000 hour History Channel documentary. So they designed the KR-175, which would look really funny with a German helmet spike on the top. Later, a KR-175 was used in the cult classic Brazil.

There’s a smörgåsbord of these cars at the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum. And if you want to buy one, there’s still models for sale at Ebay motors. Of course, they’re not cheap, and most have two-stroke engines, so they’re about as environmentally friendly as a lawnmower. But if you can find one, and have the means, go for it. At the very least, you can drive it in the parade and make the Shriners green with envy.

* I made this up.

I need my SUV for hauling, says Joe Q. McMansion — Yeah, right. Try a tiny pickup instead!

The Australians call a car with a flatbed a “ute”, short for coupe utility. My favorite, by far, is the Mini Pickup, seen here next to a Hummer stretch:

That pretty much sums up Smallist, there. Anyway, 58,000 Mini Pickups were produced from 1961 to 1982.They’re still around if you know where to look, and with a little talent and elbow grease you can customize them. This guy dropped a Honda vtec into one that previously looked like a planter.

Other utes of note include the Suzuki Mighty Boy, too ugly to picture here. And the Holden Ute, also too ugly to picture here. And of course, the El Camino, definitely too ugly to picture here.

Volkswagen also made some pickups worth noting. Jalopnik reports that they still make one in South Africa, where small pickups are called “bakkies”. Not the prettiest things in the world, though. The older Volkswagen pickups — like the depicted 1963 Transporter — are much more attractive, and air-cooled to boot.

But the smallest pickup has to be the three wheeled Bajaj. Based on the scooter, this thing will haul 1,052 lbs. And it meets California emissions. And, in rickshaw form, it was in Octopussy. I sense a running gag.

And by the way, if you want to see some strange cars, check out haxadecimal.com. They scour ebay motors for the strangest contraptions, and boy do they find them.

So we’ve sailed small, now let’s fly small:

The Cri-Cri ultralight was developed in the seventies by French aircraft designer Michel Colomban, whose goal was an sub-$1000 (1970 dollars) aerobatic ultralight. It weighs 139 pounds in its original configuration, making it the lightest airplane in existence. You can also put tiny R/C jets on it, as depicted in the photo, to get up to 150 mph.

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