Weird Car

Aixam Mega Truck

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For Transeum’s first truck story we thought we would feature the Aixam Mega Truck because it is not only practical it is so cute! These trucks come from Lyon in France, we took this shot at the Paris Motor Show and really wanted to bring it home. The vehicle has been designed to be a low environmental impact utility vehicle which has been built for short hauls around cities. It has an aluminum chassis and most of its body parts are made up of polycarbonate panels and parts. There are two choices for power plant, either a diesel or a very environmentally friendly zero emission electric engine. The basic truck is just under three metres long, and one and a half metres wide and has a payload of 425 kg for the electric and 460 for the diesel. Being so light it is an ideal vehicle to use in cities and as the body is so safe it is very pedestrian friendly, a lot of councils, and even hospitals and resorts across Europe are switching to these vehicles for street sweeping and other city duties. And just as a final point to this vehicles environmental credentials- the truck is 100% recyclable once its life is over.

Sachsenring P 240 Repräsentant

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This ‘beautiful’ four door open top vehicle is the 1969 Sachsenring P240 Reprasentant it was built by the Sachsenring factory which was also responsible for the Trabant East Germany. The car was not sold to the public it was used primarily for military parades and to cart the Communist leaders around in style. The car was pretty much a normal P-240 which didn’t look half as impressive. It was powered by a Horch 6 cylinder engine which was a pre war design pumping out a throbbing 80 hp from the 2407 cc engine. Other favorites for the Communist leaders included the Czech Tatra, the Russian Zil and Gaz but none were anywhere as striking as this handsome vehicle which was seen at the Trabant museum in Zwickau, Germany.

Toyota’s smart little Crayon

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The tiny Toyota Crayon is a short range transport system which is being ran by Toyota in Toyota City which is just outside Nagoya in Japan. These cute little vehicles are electric and are used as share cars throughout the city. This ingenious trial uses a fleet of the Crayon cars which can be hired for short trips through Toyota City. There are stations all over the city where the vehicles can be left and charged for the next user. Toyota is also experimenting with high technology like self driving systems on these vehicles; people can take a ride on one of these IMTS (Intelligent Multi Mode Transit System) Crayon vehicles on a special test track at Toyota’s huge showroom, Toyota MegaWeb at Odaiba on Tokyo’s waterfront.

VW concept car GX 3

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This weeks weird car of the week is the VW concept car the GX 3. More motorbike meets car, the 92kw 3 wheel roadseter takes 5.7 sec to go from 0 to 100 klm. the 1.6 litre 4 cyl engine supplies power to the rear wheel via a 6-speed transmission and chain drive. The car made its premier at the Los Angeles Motor Show and was actually designed at the VW Design Centre in California, with the US in mind.  At launch VW had plans to take this model further and hopefully bring something like it into market. They were hoping it would sell at around $17000.