Let's Talk Cyclecars

Here's what the town square of Sienna ,Italy looks like if you were wondering from post #12599.

 

I have been there a couple of times, on my own, staying in hostels wherever I was in Italy. Beautiful place, like Italy in general. I was there once the day after the palio, a horse race around the square.

There was a Moto Morini dealer there. They had a Morini GP racing bike that Agostini had ridden early in his career. Mr Luzzi very generously took it from inside the shop and put it outside so that I - very much an amateur photographer - could get better pics of it.

 

One of life's moments that are never forgotten. Something seemingly out of reach firmly within your grasp. He was probably just as jazzed to let you take the picture as you were taking it.

 

WOW!! love the Cooper

 

I'm pretty sure this is the kind of car Dave "Bigcheese327" had in mind when he started this thread in December of 2007.

Panhard Dyna X Special Barquette built in 1953 equipped with a 850 cm3. motorcycle engine ...

 

For those not familiar, heres what a air cooled Panhard Dyna looks like . Only a mother could like a face like that Even has a rain gutter above the windscreen. Must say though the hood is cool with those scallops

 

That falls in the so ugly it's cute category.

 

Beautiful urbanity! Some of you might know that I'm a student of the way urban form intersects with automotive technology. In a nutshell, I'm convinced that the urban environments least oriented to cars can produce the most appealing, most interesting cars, if given half a chance.

I came within a hair's breadth of buying a 3½ about 40 years ago.

 

The later and last Panhard 24 looked much nicer. Sadly Panhard was consumed by Citroeen and this was the last Panhard. You can see where Citroen got the styling of the DS from though. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panhard_24

 

I must be its mother.

 

I did buy a Moto Morini 3 1/2 Sport in 1976. One of the best balanced and handling bikes I have ever owned.

 

For awhile now we have been seeing construction pictures of this bike by Pavel Malanik. Pavel measured the engine in a museum so that he could go home and build one from scratch for this project.There were only three of these engines built. We know of the one from Rick Scadwell's J.A.P. V-8 GN. . Did I mention that the rest of the bike was also built from scratch.

https://www.pavelmalanik.cz/jap-v8/...P35A_suc-rw-MxZ3yQMLRebCOyHnE7PXVstfurey1NSxs

 

Beautiful!!

 

Too pretty to crank!!

 

Are you sure it's a motorcycle engine and not a 850cc from a later Panhard ? Unless they did a BMW swap, but I believe they are bigger than 850cc.

 

It is the car engine. I'll stand by my statement that this is what Dave had in mind. He groused the direction the thread took toward "cyclecars" rather than cars powered by cycle engines. at 850CC it's more like a cycle engine than a car...even though it was.

 

=======================================

Hello, ​

For sure that mentioned Panhard engine is an AUTOMOBILE engine, from the start of the after-war series of autos! In that period, in Europe, a capacity of 850cc was not considered an extremely small engine. There were a lot of autos with engines of 500-850cc, used successfully in light but real autos, not micro-cars of modern cyclecars.
Panhard engines were extremely unusual for that period, the same as models...

BMW motorcycle boxer engine (opposed-twin) in the same period had 500cc and was used as automobile engines only in their own products: BMW 600 developed from Isetta and a "real" auto - BMW 700!
--- ---
Anyway, the term "cyclecar" wasn't popularised because of motorcycle engines used, but because of simplicity, lightness, and low prices - in a range of motorcycles. Some had motorcycles' engines but the majority had original engines made by the same company as cyclecar or bought on the market of small engines...
--- ---
As the often repeated old story - I almost bought a wonderful light-blue Panhard coupé from a friend in Nis, central Serbia. He had two of them, one in his backyard, with a few other oldtimers, including a motorcycle Ferrari... His Panhard had installed a Citroen Dyane engine of a similar layout. But, that "should-be-mine" was in a nearby village on a farm of his relatives. We went there, to see it and make a deal... When he was talking with his aunt, I saw that all of the "houses" for chickens and sheep - were covered by light blue metal plates, strange shapes - but of the light-blue color! Therefore, I said to him: we could go now - your/mine Panhard coupè is gone forever...

Ciao, Zoran​

 

P.S.: For me - shown Panhard special (quite ugly, but cute) - is in the spirit and style of a possibly constructed "modern cyclecar"...
Not all of them must have a Hayabusa engine, and an Akrapovic exhaust system... Classic cyclecars didn't have the best and the most powerful, the most expensive engines, and for sure not necessarily taken from motorcycles... But, who likes that - could buy a big and expensive, but nice looking and powerful: Harley-Davidson V-Twin, or Moto-Guzzi V-Twin, or BMW boxer-twin, or some Asain (cheaper) big V-Twin. For me - an engine from Citroen Dyane two-cylinder boxer, 600cc, 33 hp - would be enough...
Z.

 

Like the engine drawing.

 

Model Y, Australian built

 

'Probably Arch Tuckett's Midget speedcar with Henderson motorcycle engine, having engine work, in lane behind William Street, East Sydney/Woolloomooloo next to C.A. Martin, decorator, late 1934' Sam Hood photos; State Library of New South Wales

 

Too cool!!

 

ACP Magazines Ltd photographic archive including Pix magazine negatives 1930s- 1980s

 

Mike

 

That is beautiful with or without the body.

 

This is a beautiful bike, plus your feet would stay warm while riding.

 

'Mrs MacKinnon midget car October 1938' - ACP Magazines Ltd photographic archive including Pix magazine negatives 1930s - 1980s; State Library of New South Wales [note the Willys poster on the wall, and the poster next to it could be another Willys poster]

 

Written below photograph: Alex Collingridge - Canberra. State Library of Victoria

 

Would that be an "M" type?