MY FEEDLY

Bizarre Project Car: An ETV “Extra Terrestrial Vehicle” – $10,400+ USD

Dubbed the ETV by its creator as an acronym for “Extra Terrestrial Vehicle,” this unusual looking car was developed and built in Florida as part of a limited production run.

Although it looks like it was created by the props department for a film set in the future, the ETV is 100% road legal, it has remote opening gullwing doors, seating for two, and they say it gets over 40 mpg thanks to its slippery aerodynamics.

Fast Facts – Mike Vetter’s Unusual ETV

Former Burger King employee Mike Vetter has become a self-made millionaire by designing and building some of the most unusual cars in the world.
Vetter started out building Ferrari and Lamborghini kit cars on the Pontiac Fiero platform, but after repeated legal threats from the Italian automakers he decided to design his own cars from scratch.
The first ETV was built over 14 years ago and a number of others have been built since, the cars have been made using a number of donor cars including the Chevrolet Aveo, Chevrolet Cobalt SS, Toyota Echo, and even a Porsche Boxster.
Vetter now builds his creations in Florida under the company name “The Car Factory,” and he offers clients the ability to work with him to design their own car from scratch if they like.

Creating The ETV – “Extra Terrestrial Vehicle”

The ETV is a car that most of us have seen before, typically floating around as a grainy jpeg image in the dark recesses of the internet with people arguing in the comments section about what it actually is.

Above Video: This clip from Barcoft Cars shows Mike Vetter discussing the ETV, its design, and how it all gets built.

Some insist its a prop vehicle from a sci-fi film, some think its an as-yet unreleased production car, and some claim its a kit car made by a guy in Florida.

Though it’s not technically a kit car, it’s that latter group of commenters who are the closest to being right. Dubbed the “Extra Terrestrial Vehicle,” the ETV was developed by former kit car builder Mike Vetter who founded the company The Car Factory to build and sell entirely unique automotive creations.

As the story goes, the project to create the ETV began when Vetter had a daughter and realized he didn’t have space for her in his sports car. He began modifying the car, one thing led to another, and mission creep being what it is he ended up building an entirely new vehicle.

ETV: Specifications + Design

Vetter takes pride in explaining to people that he can build an ETV on a wide variety of platforms, the Chevrolet Aveo and Chevrolet Cobalt SS are the most common but they’ve been build using other donor cars including the Toyota Echo and a Porsche Boxster.

The unique styling of the ETV is unlike another vehicle on the road even today, well over 14 years since the first one was made.

The body is largely made from fiberglass, it has an unusual windshield that measures in at 4.5 feet wide by 5 feet long – it took Vetter years to find a company who would make it, even settling on a manufacturer in Peru of all places.

Though the ETV looks like it’s mid-engined it’s most frequently built in a front engined, front wheel drive specification on the Cobalt platform. This means that performance is somewhat limited but mileage is typically quite good, listed as 40+ mpg.

Inside the car you’ll find two standard bucket seats up front, and smaller 2+2-style seating in the rear. The rear seats are well-suited for children but the headroom and legroom is too limited to accommodate adults.

Gullwing doors on either side provide plenty of space for getting in and out. There’s a hatch in the rear that opens for access to the trunk, and up front there’s a small hood that provides limited access to the engine bay.

All four wheels are tucked in behind their own aerodynamic doors that can be opened when you need to change a tire.

Some versions of the ETV came with no windshield wiper and no sider mirrors, instead relying on cameras, however this example has both fitted already.

The interior of the car is largely borrowed from the original donor car, as is the engine, transmission, suspension, and braking systems.

The futuristic, aerodynamic body of the ETV is known for drawing crowds wherever it’s parked and it’s certainly not a car that’s suitable for use by someone who doesn’t like a lot of attention.

The ETV Project Car Shown Here

The ETV you see here is a project car that’s clearly going to need some work to get it back into roadworthy condition.

Its current situation is complicated, it was on display at the London Motor Museum for many years but due to Covid and other factors the museum has now been shuttered and its cars are being offered for sale on instruction of a high court ruling.

This means that the specification sheet of this specific car is a little hazy, it’s believed that it’s based on the Chevrolet Aveo platform with a 1.6 liter engine, however it may have a 2.2 liter Ecotec engine.

If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing on The Market by Bonhams.

It’s currently being offered for sale in a live online auction, and the price guide is £8,000 – £12,000 or approximately $10,400 – $15,600 USD.

Images courtesy of The Market by Bonhams

The post Bizarre Project Car: An ETV “Extra Terrestrial Vehicle” – $10,400+ USD appeared first on Silodrome.

from Silodrome https://silodrome.com/etv-extra-terrestrial-vehicle/
via gqrds

A 1968 Fuji Go-Devil: The Folding Motorcycle That Fits In A Suitcase

This is the Fuji Go-Devil scooter, it’s a small folding motorcycle that was designed to fit neatly into a suitcase or the supplied carry bag – making it easy to transport and simple to set up and use when needed.

Folding scooters and motorcycles were nothing when the Fuji Go-Devil was released of course, the concept has existed since at least the 1910s. The most famous is likely the WWII-era Welbike, a folding scooter that was parachuted in behind enemy lines to give troops motorized transport when on the ground.

Fast Facts – The Fuji Go-Devil

The Fuji Go-Devil was developed by Fuji Heavy Industries out of Japan and sold between 1964 and 1967. The same company would later become famous for their line of AWD cars under the Subaru brand name.
Weighing in at just 73 lbs (33 kilograms), the Fuji Go-Devil could be folded out ready to ride in two minutes or less.
Each scooter came with its own carry bag for easy transport, theoretically you could check your Go Devil in as luggage on your flight, and then have motorized transport instantly upon leaving the airport.
The Go-Devil has a tubular steel frame, a 53cc two-stroke, single-cylinder engine, a centrifugal clutch, front and rear suspension, and a top speed of 24 mph.

Fuji Heavy Industries

Fuji Heavy Industries was officially formed in 1953 when five Japanese companies joined to form one of the country’s largest manufacturers of transportation machinery.

This period image from Cycle World Magazine shows the Go-Devil being unfolded and ridden.

Interestingly, the company can directly trace its roots back to the Nakajima Aircraft Company which was a key supplier of aircraft to the Japanese government during World War II.

The company began selling vehicles under the “Subaru” brandname in 1954 with the release of the Subaru 1500 in Japan. The first car they exported to the United States was the Subaru 360 in 1968, a car that was marketed as being “cheap and ugly.”

The car that would define the future of the brand was released in 1972, it was the Subaru Leone Wagon with its unusual Subaru SAWD system – an acronym for “Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive.”

Today of course, Subaru is one of the world’s pre-eminent manufacturers of all-wheel drive cars and it has a long history of motorsport success – particularly in the world of rally.

The Fuji Go-Devil “Suitcase Scooter”

The Fuji Go-Devil was introduced in the mid-1960s as an innovative new folding scooter. The Honda Cub had been released in 1958 and had proven popular in the United States, as it was cheap to buy, cheap to run, and reliable.

Above Video: This short video shows a Fuji Go Devil being removed from a bag, unfolded and assembled, started, and then ridden.

Engineers over at Fuji Heavy Industries developed a folding motorized scooter with a 53cc single-cylinder, two-stroke engine with a centrifugal clutch operating together with a variable ratio pulley.

It’s possible that they were inspired by the Brockhouse Corgi, the civilianized version of the WWII-era folding Welbike scooter, though other folding scooters had been developed over the years.

Whatever their reasoning they developed one of the most well-designed folding scooter designs in history. It has a tubular steel duplex cradle frame with a centrally-mounted engine and transmission.

Unusually for a motorcycle of this type it has swing arm rear suspension and telescopic forks up front, offering a more comfortable ride that the competition.

When new the Fuji Go-Devil sold for $239.50 plus tax in the United States, each came with its own carry bag and a simple instructional manual on how to fold and unfold the bike, and start the engine.

This example comes with the original blue carry bag and it’s still wrapped in protective plastic and cardboard.

It’s not known exactly how many were made, they only come up for sale relatively rarely and the example pictured here is the most well-preserved Go-Devil we’ve seen in recent memory.

The 1968 Fuji Go-Devil Shown Here

The Fuji Go-Devil you see here is from 1967, the 1968 model year and the last year of production.

Although the listing isn’t clear it does appear that this Go Devil has been preserved in its current condition, it looks new throughout and the protective cardboard is still wrapped around the frame tubes.

The process of folding and unfolding the bike takes an experienced owner approximately two minutes, and the engine is started with a simple pull cord like a lawn mower.

This Go Devil is currently for sale over on Bring A Trailer out of Lake Elsinore in California, if you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

Images courtesy of Bring A Trailer

The post A 1968 Fuji Go-Devil: The Folding Motorcycle That Fits In A Suitcase appeared first on Silodrome.

from Silodrome https://silodrome.com/fuji-go-devil-scooter/
via gqrds

The “Milan Coupe” – A Rare Shortened 1979 Cadillac Seville

The Cadillac Seville Milan coupe was a car that was built in very limited numbers by a private specialist company in California called Milan Coach Builders Inc.

Each Milan started life as a four-door Cadillac Seville, it was then chopped and shortened so that its 114 inch wheelbase became 96 inches. The goal was to compete with the likes of the Mercedes-Benz R107 SL, but success was limited and only 500 or so are thought to have been made.

Fast Facts – The Cadillac Seville Milan Coupe

The Cadillac Seville Milan Coupe was the brainchild of Milan Daniel, he believed that the Cadillac Seville could be turned into a luxurious short wheelbase coupe and that people would buy them.
The styling of the Milan coupe was somewhat controversial. Many believed it was shortened too much and looked awkward, there were also some safety concerns about the car and its much lighter rear end.
Approximately 500 examples of the Cadillac Seville Milan were built by Milan Coach Builders Inc., they also provided kits to other company who wanted to do their own conversions, though it’s not known how many kits were sold.
The Milan coupe kept the engine and transmission of the Seville that it was based on, as well as all the refinements including options like air-conditioning, cruise control, electric windows, and opulently proportioned seats.

Cadillac’s Answer To Mercedes And BMW

The Cadillac Seville was developed and built as a direct answer to the increasingly popular vehicles being sold in the United States by Mercedes-Benz and BMW.

The shortened wheelbase of the Milan coupe, 18 inches less than the standard Cadillac Seville, takes a little getting used to.

Cadillac had long been once of America’s permanent luxury car builders, but a new generation of luxury cars coming out of German proved that many American consumers didn’t want land yachts, they wanted cars with all the bells and whistles that were easy to drive and easy to park.

Cadillac Seville Specifications

The Seville was built with unibody construction rather than the more traditional body-on-frame construction, and it used a bolt-on subframe with a rear suspension based on the 1968–74 X-body platform.

Power was provided by an Oldsmobile-sourced 350 cubic inch (5.7 liter) V8, unusually for the era it was fitted with a Bendix/Bosch electronically-controlled fuel injection system. This engine produced 180 bhp resulting in a 0-60 mph time of 11.5 seconds (reasonable for the era), power was sent to the rear wheels via a 3-speed TH-400 Turbo-Hydramatic automatic transmission.

The Seville offered gas mileage of 17 mpg in the city and 23 mpg on the highway – these numbers were remarkable for a Cadillac, as many of the Seville’s forebears had single digit mileage figures. Interestingly Cadillac introduced a diesel V8 version of the car in 1978.

The sharper lines of the car combined with the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow-inspired front end and the smaller overall size resulted in it being popular with buyers in the USA, but perhaps not quite enough to tempt people en masse away from their German sedans.

The first generation of the Cadillac Seville would remain in production from 1976 until 1979. It was deemed a success by Cadillac, both Lincoln and Chrysler responded with similar cars of their own, resulting in the Lincoln Versailles and the Chrysler LeBaron.

In this configuration the car keeps its original interior from the B-pillar forwards, the rear seats and rear doors are removed and the roof is shortened.

The second generation Seville was built from 1979 to 1985, the front end was broadly similar to the earlier model but the car featured razor-edged bustle-back rear styling.

The Cadillac Seville Milan Coupe

The Cadillac Seville Milan coupe was introduced in 1976 to fulfill demand for a shorter wheelbase two-door version of the new Cadillac.

The plan was to compete with the European luxury coupes like the Mercedes-Benz R107, the BMW E24, and the Jaguar XJ-S.

The primary change that was applied to all cars was also the most obvious – the body was chopped and the wheelbase shorted from 114 inches to 96 inches. This 18 inch change resulted in the rear set of doors disappearing and the roof shortening noticeably.

Much has been said about the aesthetics of the change, not much of it complimentary, however over 500 people liked the conversion enough that they laid out up to $15,000 USD to have it done – on top of the cost of a new Cadillac Seville.

Some Cadillac dealers offered the conversion service to new car buyers and as a result some where sold off dealership showroom floors, however General Motors never condoned this or encouraged it.

Demand for new Milan coupes was such that at one point, Milan Coach Builders Inc. was producing 100 – 125 of them per year at a rate of up to 10 per month at their facility in Simi Valley, California.

Unable to keep up with demand they developed kits that could be applied by other companies, and conversions were also done on the East Coast and in Mexico.

Some later versions of the Milan coupe had 500 lbs of concrete added in the rear to help improve handling and weight distribution issues.

Today there’s a committed community of Seville Milan owners dedicated to keeping the cars on the road and providing information and other resources to owners. Love them or loathe them, they’re a microcosm of their age.

The 1979 Cadillac Seville Milan Coupe Shown Here

The car you see here is a 1979 Cadillac Seville Milan coupe, from the final year of production.

It was originally delivered on the 22nd of June 1979, finished in white over a red leather-trimmed interior with contrasting wood veneer. It was ordered with electrically windows and seats, cruise control, climate control, and automatic “Sentinel” lights.

As you would expect the car is powered by the correct 350 cubic inch (5.7 liter) V8 which is sending power to the rear wheels via the reliable 3-speed TH-400 Turbo-Hydramatic automatic gearbox.

This car is now for sale, it’s accompanied by its original owner’s manual, warranty card, historic registration certificates, some spare parts, a jack, spare wheel, and four keys.

If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing on Collecting Cars.