Fair warning. If you’ve got some mechanical motivation and a little bit of expendable income, CycleKarts could occupy every weekend for the next several years. Still interested? Let’s get into it.
From the crew at Petrolicious comes something I’ve only heard about but never spent the time investigating. That could change.
CycleKarts are the modern offspring of the cyclecars from the turn of the century. The newest incarnations use the Stevenson Formula (named after its creator), with a boxed steel frame and leaf springs. Out back there’s a pull-started, air-cooled 200cc Honda GV200 4-stroke sending around six HP and nine lb-ft of torque to one wheel and a mechanical disc on the other.
With the exception of the engine, you make it all. From the frame to the mechanical to the body work. Think hand-rolled aluminum or fiberglass or whatever.
But here’s the best part: it shouldn’t cost more than $1,500 or so to get started and they only weight around 250 pounds. If you’ve shied away from bikes or don’t have the coin for a project car, but are still interested in your significant other rolling their eyes at you in admiring disgust, CycleKarts could be the way to go. Read about it here, but again, you’ve been warned.
Contact the author at damon@jalopnik.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: 7301 D7FC 2FF6 D437 E5A7 0568 3A14 624A 1800 4C85