So I was flipping through a regional auto trader style magazine, and there is an auction advertised with a few interesting vehicles. I got onto the website and this is what it says about them:
Auction site said: Three Unique Prototype Cars (Patent #5366034 Impact Energy Dissipation Vehicle) based on the following vehicles: 1980 Yamaha 1100 Midnight Special, 1998 Ford Taurus 12K miles, 1994 Pontiac Cutlass Sierra 117K miles.
Here's some pics:
The trader ad also lists them as "anti-fatality vehicles". So how is ti supposed to work? In case of an accident, the cage separates and rolls until you hit something else? I don't get it.
Looks to me like something leftover from Top Gear.
twilight zone?
I would say bored, drunk, high, & rednecked influence
Lawn Art. Someone's ganking you.
Google turned up this description:
Abstract: A vehicle has a passenger compartment suspended between two wheels mounted at the ends of a single axle that is perpendicular to the direction of travel. The passenger compartment is mounted beneath the axle so as to allow the passenger compartment to repeatedly rotate in an unconstrained manner about the axle upon impact of the vehicle with another object so as to convert linear momentum of the vehicle into self-extinguishing angular momentum in order to dissipate energy and reduce injury to passengers in the passenger compartment.
I think I'd take my chances with linear momentum after seeing these "vehicles."
I don't know, but in a weird burst of synchronicity, I was just listening to "The Midnight Special" when I opened this thread for the first time.
PS122 wrote: Google turned up this description: Abstract: A vehicle has a passenger compartment suspended between two wheels mounted at the ends of a single axle that is perpendicular to the direction of travel. The passenger compartment is mounted beneath the axle so as to allow the passenger compartment to repeatedly rotate in an unconstrained manner about the axle upon impact of the vehicle with another object so as to convert linear momentum of the vehicle into self-extinguishing angular momentum in order to dissipate energy and reduce injury to passengers in the passenger compartment. I think I'd take my chances with linear momentum after seeing these "vehicles."
"Oh no, I've gone cross-eyed!"
Just like the 'egg-drop' competition back in school.
You might not die, but you'll vomit for hours after you get out of that tilt-a-whirl.
i was thinking a Racing Simulator....LOL put them in your living room
Suddenly I'm hankerin' for a good ole demolition derby
good gods.. can you imagine the momentium from a 50+mph head on converted to spinning?
Whats the high bid? It would be hilarious to pin the gas pedal down and aim one sans driver at something solid. 
I like the octagonal ones - add bone-jarring bumps to the disorienting spinning. It'd be like tumbling in a broken clothes dryer full of vomit.
And tell me again exactly what happens in a side impact from a truck whose driver is distracted looking at all that crap???
I think the octagonal ones spin the passenger compartment around a vertical axis while the round ones spin the compartment around a horizontal axis. I actually really want to see one tested.
I think they give endless opportunity for the operator to vomit both before entering and while inside.
16vCorey wrote-- "The trader ad also lists them as "anti-fatality vehicles".
For the occupants, perhaps.
As for any observers, passers-by, etc...I think not..because I just berkleying died laughing.
"Side Impact Ejector Apparatus"
Hey, I think that's the "safe" motorcycle the government designed back in about '79.
looks like a hamster wheel. and for some reason, I have this mental picture of the momentum from the gondola thing picking the vehicle up off the ground and hurling it uncontrollably forward... picture your thumb getting stuck in a bowling ball when you try to release it and that's generally what I'm picturing happening with these hamster wheels
I'm picturing the welds breaking (shouldn't be hard), and the whole darned contraption catapulting over the offending obstruction, then accelerating to untold rpms of death rolling down the street while some drunk redneck fool stuck inside the pod (which is bent, and therefore does not swing freely, but rather rotates uncontrollably with the rest of the hamster wheel) cries "Mamaaaa"!
But, maybe it's just me...
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