If you watch Jay Leno’s Garage channel on Youtube somewhat regularly you probably saw his Taycan review from a few weeks ago. If you’re anything like me, you noticed how absolutely boring it was. It wasn’t even because his guest was like a “YES MR. LENO” PR guy either. The guy from Porsche seemed really affable and knowledgeable. There’s just something about reviewing electric cars that got old really quick. There isn’t really much to talk about, is there?
Briggs & Stratton has arrived to end our boredom.
For some context, in case you don’t know who Briggs & Stratton is, they’re probably the most well-known small engine manufacturer out there. They make engines from one horsepower all the way up to around fifty. I don’t think they’ve ever made anything with more than two cylinders, but the tinkering community surrounding these engines has certainly tried (and succeeded). Let’s get back to this car, though.
The vehicle in question is a six-wheeled hatchback. It has a bank of lead-acid batteries in the trunk and an opposed-twin Briggs engine upfront. The engine is about 700cc and makes 18 horsepower. You may be thinking that 18 horsepower isn’t much, and you are right! B&S really wanted this motor to be the centerpiece of this car, but it alone clearly wouldn’t be enough to pull the vehicle around all the time. That’s where the big DC motor comes into play.
I was thinking that this electric motor adds like, at least fifty horsepower. I’m not gonna beat around the bush here: It adds 8. They say it could do 20 in short bursts, but I’m not really sure how much better than would be. The car isn’t particularly light either, in case you were wondering. It weighs 3200lbs–1000lbs of which is the massive lead-acid battery pack. Its impressive girth is the primary reason why there’s an extra axle out back–it’s there to support the dozen heavy batteries.
Another justification for the extra axle is related to serviceability. One could apparently disconnect the driveshaft & electronics and then simply pull that little four-wheeled chassis out from under the jacked-up car. This is a strange feature for a one-off concept vehicle, but it turns out this is actually a feature of the Canadian-made electric delivery vans the Briggs’ car was based upon.
Plenty of Parts from a Pinto
The Briggs engine is backed up by a four-speed manual transmission out of a period Ford Pinto. It sends power to only one of the rear axles, as pictured in the image above. Many of the mechanical parts of this car are Pinto-based. Another automotive guest in this adventure is Volkswagen. The doors and much of the interior is from a Scirocco.
Once you add all of this up, you get a car that has a top speed of around 68 mph. None other than Richard Petty was selected to discover this top speed on a closed course. It apparently takes a loooooong time to get there. Forty miles-per-hour took something like thirty seconds.
This car really isn’t about speed, though. It’s a tech demonstrator that was meant to sell some small engines. Considering that most people have never heard of it, and Jay Leno asks the B&G technician if, “You were surprised that we called”, I would say it probably didn’t do much good for them. That’s today, though. The press covered this car when it came out in 1980, with Car & Driver doing a road test of it. Pieces of that review can be found here. I would imagine that if they did something similar today, it would get a lot of attention. Just look at what happened when Sony revealed its own EV. The press jumped all over it.
One last thing:
Where did they get the headlights for this car? Scroll up and take another peek at this thing. They look so familiar.
Alpine GTA is close but not quite…
Maybe Dodge Magnum?
I’m certain one of you will know and lambaste me in the comments for being such a moron. Honestly, I probably deserve it. I’ve seen those headlights somewhere before. Let me know what you think.
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