Thursday, June 15, 2023

Extremely strange cars. Some people say that today’s cars are boring...

Certainly when one observes a traffic jam half-full of medium-sized crossovers, we sometimes have to agree. This story is not however about crossovers – rather it’s about the oddest, strangest and downright weirdest cars that have ever been made – let’s take a look:

Leyat Helica

In 1909 Frenchman Marcel Leyat aspired to build an aircraft but ran out of money so instead turned his hand to produce a plane without wings – and the Helica was born. Made of wood, it was light and quite efficient in its own way and could hit 106mph, but although interest was high after it appeared at the 1921 Paris motor show, just 30 were ever built as production was tricky. Just four of them survive today, it seems.

Tesla Cybertruck

Before Elon Musk unveiled his new EV pickup in concept form, most envisioned it would resemble a slightly more streamlined F-150 or Silverado. But no: it resembled something that has possibly travelled to this planet from Mars. Given its creator’s apparent obsession with that planet, that may well have been the point. We await with baited breath what the version people will actually be able to buy will look like – but it probably won’t be boring.

Fiat Multipla

The first Fiat to carry the Multipla name was the 600 Multipla of 1956, a tiny 3531mm-long machine that theoretically could carry six people and can reasonably make a claim to be the world’s first MPV. The Multipla of 1998 was in many ways also ingenious – it too was a six-seater, carrying this off by having two rows of three seats – astonishingly clever packaging in a car less than four metres long. But its looks were controversial to say the least, and it seems even Fiat were taken aback as the 2004 facelift toned that appearance down by 80%.

Stout Scarab

Fiat may have a claim to be the maker of the first mass-produced MPV, but America’s Stout arguably got there even earlier, albeit with a car that didn’t even make double figures in production terms. But just look at it - imagine the impact it made when the world first saw it in 1932?

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