Microcars, Steam-power, and Corvairs

I had no idea there had been so many attempts to market micro cars. Some of them are remarkably ugly, some of them could easily appear in the dictionary as illustrations for the term "death trap", while others look kinda cool. H/T to Robert Netzlof.

Also on the topic of cars, I had no idea just how time-consuming it was to start a Stanley Steamer. (H/T to Ken Olsen for that link.)

And to think that I used to consider Ralph Nader's crusade against the Corvair to be a joke . . . Maarten Vis tells of his own Corvair experiences:

Around that time (1960), GM decided to market the Chevrolet Corvair in The Netherlands. The cars arrived by boat in Rotterdam where I studied at the time. So they needed drivers to get the cars to the selling dealers. There was good money in doing just that as a student.

Of course, the quality of the Corvairs was almost atrocious. So we always drove 4 - 6 cars in a convoy, and had a cable on board in case one needed to be pulled!! During months that I did this we had:

2 cars that burned out
about 10 cars that simply quit functioning
I had one once that lost 2 doors while going straight, they just fell off.
Numerous cars were pulled to their destination.
One ended in a canal, due to loss of the right front wheel...