What is it with coho and those damn 3wheelers?
This one used to be a plane.
I've always thought trikes were cool.
3wheelers.com has been in the sidebar of this blog from the beginning. It is a list of (almost) every commercially-produced 3wheeler since 1769.
I prefer the reverse style (a.k.a. backwards or tadpole) with two wheels in front and one drive wheel (graft the posterior 75% of a motorcycle to an automotive front end and the rest is just bodywork). The handling is vastly superior to the two wheels in back type.
[Note: front wheel drive is not uncommon in such a vehicle, I just don't think of them the same way. That's a three wheeled front wheel drive car, not a three wheeled motorcycle.]
Besides, I like the dynamics of rear wheel drive and I've never seen a 3wheeler with all wheel drive. If you see one, let me know so that I can begin wanting one immediately...even if it's ugly. All wheel drive is neat. All wheel drive with an odd number of wheels is...ooh, I need a towel.
This one is Czech, and I can't remember anything else about it. It's a one-off, like most 3wheelers, and it's neat in a spaceshippy way, but ultimately isn't even as practical as a motorbike (the groceries go where, now?). And I'm afraid I must insist on at least a modicum of practicality in my vehicles. It's just the way I'm wired.
This one is the opposite of a one-off. It's a Grinnall Scorpion and if you want one you can order it from Grinnall as a kit, or as an engineless but fully assembled body ready for the BMW K1200 engine from your donor bike. I saw a 1999 Scorpion for sale online just this morning for only £8000. They also make (ho-hum) conventional trikes (two in back) out of the BMW R1200C and R1150R, as well as a four wheeled version of the Scorpion (Scorpion IV) about which I couldn't possibly care less...that's just a car.
I don't know these people, I just want their trike.
For a long time, the FireAero was the top of my 3wheeler want-list. It saw production as a kit and as a complete vehicle in the mid 1980s. The thing I liked most about it was that it was a well thought out, coherent whole, not just bits put together. And the Goldwing boxer4 engine that was in the later ones is a sweet bit of motor. Alas, like the TriHawk, the newest ones are twenty years old and $pendy...if you can
find one at all.
Of course there's always the
T-Rex. Built in Canada, high level of fit and finish, blisteringly fast (the newest iteration has a 187hp Kawasaki ZX1400 engine). The only thing wrong with it is that it's FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. US dollars, too, not that colorful stuff the Canucks use at home. Enough to buy
four Kawasaki ZX1400s. That's simply too freakin' much. Bad ass, though.
Then came Volkswagen.
VW showed a reverse 3wheeler at the 2006 LA auto show. They claimed they were going to bring the GX3 to market in '07 or '08 for under $20K. 
This, of course, made more drool than usual run down my chin because a company with as deep a set of pockets as VW could really make a go of it (and that swingarm is a beautiful piece of engineering/sculpture). 
If they established a niche it wouldn't be more than a year or two before there was a Toyota 3wheeler, and a Honda, and a BMW, and a Suzuki, etc. Different trim levels, open or enclosed, even...(gasp) a 3wheeler aftermarket... Then the Germans chickened out. No GX3 for you or me. Damn.
You may have noticed (and almost certainly will now that I've drawn your attention to it) that these are all sit in machines (carlike) rather than sit on machines (like a motorbike) even though most of them are registered as bikes. Also that none of them are leaners. Leaning is for motorcycles. If I want to put new grooves in the sides of my boots I'll take the bike. This is a different kind of ride. Besides, until very recently the vast majority of the sit on ones looked somehow wrong. Too much like somebody just welded together a wrecked bike and a wrecked car. Not so much anymore.
It seems that the sit on type is currently ascendent. With the arrival of the (leaning) Piaggio MP3 scooter and the (non-leaning but much more powerful) CanAm Spyder it may be that small, light and gas-friendly 3wheelers will become a growing portion of our traffic. Neat. It's about time for the "cool new thing" to be something I like instead of the exact opposite of what I like.
The reverse-trike concept is not a new one as this advertisement for an 1898 Beeston Motette shows, but it seems that the time for the idea is upon us (both for leaning and non-leaning 3wheelers). That's why I'm so jazzed about the CanAm Spyder (see previous post - and probably the next one too), because while Bombardier may not have quite the depth of pocket VW has, they can take care of themselves and they're bringing it to a dealer near you (if you live in the correct state ... tell me again why we need fifty separate DMVs for one country?).
(not an advertisement)
AeroTrike Kit - about $5K + donor bike
This is the one I couldn't remember the name of in the post before last.
It also has a pretty cool control system, the body and all three wheels lean so you'd be countersteering like it was a 2wheeler, but the footboards remain parallel to the ground all the time. That sounds like a recipe for leverage to me. The guy in the video is hanging waaay off, but since the footboards can't touch down, and he can't lowside until the outside front wheel comes off the ground...I bet you could drag your helmet if you wanted to (do they make helmet pucks?).
