Piaggio has always had a separate online home for its impressive MP3, now that site has gotten a nice, juicy upgrade.
A custom, tilting trike, solo seat vehicle based on moto components
Piaggio has always had a separate online home for its impressive MP3, now that site has gotten a nice, juicy upgrade.
The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, the fastest airplane ever put into production, was designed without a single computer. Those steely-eyed missile men didn’t even have calculators. Slide rules, hand calculations and common sense built the greatest spy plane of all time. I salute you, gentlemen!
This vehicle uses a motorized leaning system to sort of idiot-proof it. That’s one of the many things that I really want to avoid. It’s also horrendously expensive. I don’t mind if my vehicle isn’t completely intuitive to drive in the end. Scooters aren’t! Needing some basic driving skill to operate the vehicle is half the fun if you ask me.
The more I do research for Project Streetliner, the more I’m confronted with other designers and engineers who have thought a lot of the same thoughts I have. I think that’s fantastic! It reminds me of how much the Wright brothers relied on Otto Lilienthal’s early work, and how they saw what brilliant folks like Alexander Graham Bell were doing completely wrong in their approach. Granted, I’m not really trying to do anything new here. What makes this a unique undertaking in today’s world, at least I think, is that I want to build it myself. I’m not waiting for “the market” to provide it for me. How often have we wanted something to be available, but nobody makes it? What’s truly stopping us from making it ourselves besides our own apathy? Maybe I’m completely daft for thinking I can accomplish this, but I don’t think so. If two bicycle mechanics in Dayton Ohio can fly using nothing but wood, canvas and balls then I can build my goofy little commuter vehicle. I won’t even need to build a wind tunnel.
Via Gizmag, this Aprilia Magnet concept is getting very, very close to what I have in mind. I’ve considered the front wheel electric hybrid drive also, but for cost and complexity’s sake don’t think they’ll make it into my final vehicle. Besides, this is less about speed and more about stability and efficiency.
On Flickr, Dickdavid says that my Concept #2 sketch reminds him of this. I hadn’t thought about going an Art Deco route. Love it! Mostly, I’ve had Modernist in my head.
This is the vehicle that really started me thinking about a tilting trike. The crux of what I want to build is a recumbent version of Piaggio’s MP3. This video shows some very cool CAD animations of the tilting mechanism.
Wow. This production Elfin MS8 shares a lot of the design elements I want to incorporate.