Alternative Transportation: The Shuttlebug Test Drive

For new readers of this publication, the SHUTTLEBUG is a
two-place, ultra-light (860 pounds) urban vehicle.

The SHUTTLEBUG: MOTHER EARTH NEWS Alternative Transportation Car

The little car is designed (if the computer can be believed) to
deliver a maximum of 54 miles per gallon of regular
gasoline when driven at a steady 55 miles per hour.

It’s
also an attempt at making a very small automobile as safe
as possible (the car has a heavy roll bar over the cabin, 2 by 4 inch steel box beams along the sides of the
driver/passenger compartment, and a front end calculated to
progressively collapse — thereby safely dissipating as
much energy as possible — in a head-on collision).

Currently, the original SHUTTLEBUG prototype is being
tested with a 16-hp Tecumseh industrial engine for a power
plant and a special torque converter — equipped with a
reverse gear of our own design — in the driveline.
Although this combination does produce acceptable
off-the-line acceleration and all the “no shift”
characteristics of an automatic transmission, we’re not at
all happy with the noise and vibration produced by the
power package/drive train combination. We expect to try
another engine in the car very soon.

We’re also changing the design of the cabin to “build in”
more footroom without altering the vehicle’s body shell in
any way. And we’ve got some ideas for further simplifying
the construction of that already-simple body.