Lots of the Auto X Prize design guidelines are worth continuing to follow as we develop our 100-mpg DIY car. If you scroll back to Update No. 19: A Roof Over our Heads, you'll see our first shot at compliance with the Auto X Prize’s no-roadsters rule. And if you scroll ahead a couple of posts from there, you'll find Update No. 21: New Motivation for an Enclosed Cabin, which pretty well speaks for itself.

I've driven a couple thousand miles with that “bikini top” and it's excellent for sun protection and decent for ordinary rain protection, but in serious rain, snow or slush storms, it's no great shakes. It didn't help streamlining either. The bikini top had five of the eight features we want in a top (it was cheap, it was light, it was simple, it was reliable, and it looked kinda cool), but it missed out on two biggies — weather protection and drag reduction, and it only gets a C- in the easy entry category.

I'm confident we can do better, and when I say “we”, I'm including you! If you'll go to the Kinetic Vehicles website and scroll down to the bottom of the page (look for “August 2009” subhead), you'll find some computer generated pix (side, front, top and rear) of the streamlined, aerodynamic body we're currently constructing, with front roll bar and split windshield added in. You have my enthusiastic permission to download those images and doodle up your own cabin ideas.

If you come up with something you think is worth sharing, follow the instructions on the Contact Us page to let me know. I'll write you back and we'll work out a way to transfer it. Use “MAX cabin kv” as your subject when you e-mail me. If you're a Rhino user (our software of choice for 3D imaging and CAM), let me know and I'll send you a Rhino file of MAX to work with. All I ask is you please don't send me any attachments — our system rejects anything with an unexpected attachment and I'll never see it. Actually, I'd rather not get any spam either, but I'm willing to risk it in the pursuit of a better roof.

Browse previous MAX Updates.

Check out the 100-mpg Car page for all things MAX.

Man, I sure hope I don't get kicked out of PETA for this.

I'm replacing MAX's aluminum windshield frame with something more substantial — a steel tube the same size as the roll bar. It will support the roof (coming soon) and provide a smidgen of side impact protection (more of that coming soon, too).

The trouble is that I live in deer country, on Eight Dollar Mountain in rural southern Oregon. It's bear country, too. I've seen bear in the Kinetic Vehicles driveway and our secretary, Jacky, shooed one away from her trash cans last winter, “Bad bear! Scat!” I suspect the bear ran away out of fear that Jacky was rabid.

It's even cougar country — my friend Dave, who has appeared in this blog a couple times, dang near tripped over one in his mud room this April.

But mostly it's deer country. Seeing a deer here is no more surprising than seeing a cow in Wisconsin.

I find deer charming. Every time I drive to my cabin and find them frisking about, converting my garden to venison, I can't resist calling to them, “I'm home, deer!”

Besides, they help the economy. I have a friend who is saving for his daughter's college tuition thanks to public interaction with deer: He drives a tow truck.

I hit a deer with a motorcycle once. We were both trying to dodge and we outsmarted each other. Although neither of us was killed, neither of us particularly enjoyed the experience. If I'd been driving MAX, the deer would’ve come over the hood and right into the cockpit with me, which wouldn't have improved either of our moods.

So MAX is getting what I call an auxiliary roll bar. But if local accident statistics are any guide, deer strikes are a lot more common than rollovers. I'm not sure how to discuss this in the brochure …

How's this? “The Kinetic Vehicles auxiliary roll bar helps keep wildlife in its natural environment.”

Photo by Jack McCornack

Browse previous MAX Updates.

Read the introductory MAX article, Here Comes the 100-mpg Car.

Visit the Kinetic Vehicles website for more technical details on MAX.

Did you guess why the trip home was no fun? If you live in the Pacific Northwest, I'll bet you figured it out.

In the year 2050, when children gather around my feet and ask, “Grampaw, where were you during the Great Storm of Oh Eight?” I’ll answer, “I was driving a high-mileage sports car from California to Oregon, and even in that weather I got about 60 miles to the gallon.” And I'll show them this picture, of what the world looked like from MAX's driver's seat.

Photo by Jack McCornack

Depending on how things go between now and 2050, they'll reply, “Sixty mpg? They called that high mileage back then? Ha ha ha ho ho tee hee,” or they’ll ask, “What's a car?”

Then I'll tell them that even though I was dressed for foul weather, it was a challenging trip. And even with a top, MAX was really only good for nine months of the year back then. And there were times during that trip I'd wished I'd been somewhere else and doing something more sensible, such as running with the bulls in Pamplona.

To maximize fuel economy, MAX needs a fully enclosed cabin. There's just too much drag from the wind coming in, noodling around the driver and passenger, and wandering off again. We aren't going to get 100 mpg without separating the moving air in the inside of the car from the non-moving air on the outside of the car (or vice-versa, depending on where you're standing). But now I have another motive: I’m not going to drive through another storm without a weather barrier between me and the elements.

I don't mind driving in light rain — in Oregon, that's what we call “humidity.” But I'll never plan another unprotected road trip when the weather station is predicting Industrial Strength Humidity — Now Available in Chunky Style. My second biggest problem was that the windshield wiper couldn't keep up with the snow. My biggest problem was that when the road got slushy and trucks zoomed by, their wheels would throw buckets of slush through MAX's doorless doorway, drenching me from face to floorboard. When I had to stop to buy chains — chains! I had to buy chains for MAX! — even guys with snowmobiles were saying, “Man, you're hard core!”

So I won't have to embellish much to entertain the kids, And in 2050, when they say...

“Grampaw, I did the math, that makes you 102. That's really old.” I’ll then say, “Yes, and if I hadn't met your grandmother in 2009, I might not have made it this long.” So keep those cards and letters coming.

Browse previous MAX Updates.

Read the introductory MAX article, Here Comes the 100-mpg Car.

Visit the Kinetic Vehicles website for more technical details on MAX.

The EG was a hoot and I'm so glad I went. 

EG stands for Entertainment Gathering, as far as I can tell — I was in way over my head. It featured the most eclectic group of presenters I've ever seen in one bunch. My personal favorite speaker was Teller, of Penn & Teller, who spoke of how knowing how something is done does not lessen one's appreciation of the act, even if the act is magic on stage.

Many other presentations were inspiring: One laptop per child? Good idea. Digital motion control in the arts? I'll use those lessons to make MAX's next body. Peter Diamondis of the X Prize Foundation? Heck yeah, but he'd already inspired me. International goofy dancing? The world's not such a bad place, is it? But Teller renewed my dedication to open sourcing the MAX project. If there's anything about MAX I'm not telling you, it's not because it's a trade secret, it's because I haven't figured it out yet.

Photo by Jack McCornack

MAX was well-received, partly because (as a commenter predicted in MAX Update No. 19: A Roof Over Our Heads) it was the only Auto X Prizer that got there on its own steam. The Physics Lab of Lake Havasu folks brought their “Green Giant” SUV, but they brought it on a trailer. ZAP brought a scale model of their much-anticipated Alias trike, which they maybe brought in a hatbox. Both companies have loftier goals than Kinetic Vehicles, and if the cars were being judged by projected performance, MAX would have been the loser. Instead, I was giving rides during the breaks and MAX was getting bonus points for being real.

During my talk, I described my design philosophy as minimalist, and got a good laugh with my definition: A pessimist says the glass is half empty. An optimist says the glass is half full.  A minimalist says “We're using about twice as much glass as we need here.”

The trip down to California was good fun. I used about 8 gallons from MAX's 9 gallon diesel tank and a gallon from its veggie oil tank to go the 600 miles from Grants Pass, Ore., to Monterey, Calif., via Los Banos, Calif. The conference was fabulous fun. The trip home, not so fun. I'll bet you can guess why ...?

We interrupt this science project for something practical. We'll get back to the subject of drag soon enough.

I have a speaking engagement next week, at The EG, down in Monterey, Calif. They're paying my expenses to get there from my home here in Oregon, which, since I'm taking MAX, should be about $18 of fuel. That, and lots of cough syrup.

It is, after all, the middle of December, and I whimsically refer to MAX as “an all-weather car,” meaning when you go anywhere in MAX, all the weather gets right in the car with you. That's fine for Berkeley-to-Vegas in October, but not so great for Cave-Junction-to-Monterey next Wednesday.

Still, this is a great gig — they put out a call for Progressive Automotive X Prize registered competitors to show our cars and talk about our progress — and I sure wasn't going to turn it down over a mere question of comfort. “I'm tough,” I said to myself, going to my laptop for a long range weather forecast. “Good thing I'm tough,” I muttered when I saw the forecast.

Yes, roadster season is over. The trip down will be cold; the trip back will be damp, or at least, that's the way to bet. It's time for MAX to become a convertible. Besides, the final competition rules are predicted to require a top, and I don't think we can achieve 100 mpg with an open car. So I might as well get some experience.

So here's the plan. I've made some fiberglass braces to bridge between the windshield and the roll bar, and I'm covering the gap between them with awning material. The process involves (among other things) learning how to sew.

Here's my progress so far, I think it will keep the raindrops from getting a straight shot at me. And though it's going to look a bit crude close up, it should match the excellence of the paint job at 50 mph from 50 feet away.