MAX Update No. 89: Good Work Car

Reader Contribution by Staff
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Having achieved 100 mpg (and then some) I find I’m now more interested in improving the utility of high mileage cars, than I am in further improving their mileage. There’s one really obvious utilitarian improvement in the works for MAX (I’ll bet you can guess), but first I want to brag about a feature MAX already owns: cargo capacity.

MAX’s streamlined body holds a lot of luggage, if you pack it right. MAX will carry two people, plus enough clothes and provisions for a week long “roughing it” camping adventure, or enough for a fancy weekend with considerable style. MAX will also carry clothes, provisions and tools for a freelance writer with a month on his hands and a whole country in front of him, but that requires filling the passenger’s seat with computers and cameras.

The trick is, don’t put clothes and provisions in suitcases. If you stuff your belongings loosely into duffle bags and backpacks, you can stuff the bags and backpacks loosely into MAX’s various nooks and crannies, like inside the front fenders, and still have room for a two-person tent and a couple of sleeping bags in the pontoons.

If your trip includes attending the Governor’s Ball, don’t plan on being gone for more than a couple of days, because even when you roll them up, a tuxedo and a ball gown demand a lot of storage space. For the gown, I recommend crushed velvet rather than linen.

But what if you’re doing something constructive, like Perma-Chinking a log cabin, or painting a hangar roof, or making a cement footing for a roadway gate? Well you could do the same thing you do when you’re taking your kids’ soccer team to a game–you could take a different vehicle, because there are transportation tasks that MAX simply isn’t suited to. Or…you could pop out the passenger’s seat and shift to Small Package Express mode.

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