Velocars and other interesting vehicles.

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It's taken me all day feeding French words and descriptions into Google, but I finally found a scanned copy of that French Velocar book.

http://www.gueniffey.com/systemed/

These scans are an absolute mine of long forgotten information and building methods and I'm glad I persisted with the search. When i was in school they taught French as if it was a punishment for being naughty which is a pity really because if they'd actually taught it as if it was useful for finding interesting stuff like wartime velocar designs I would've paid more attention.
 
Hi Annie,
Knocked it out while I was waiting for paint to dry on some parts.:)
Even I don't have the nerve to try and pass that story along. When and if I get to do the velo it will be this body style but I thank you for the kind thought.

Steve.
 
Annie,
While the boys are meadowlarking about in their fields of dreams the ever practical young woman is presenting plans that will be hard pressed to be realized by the boys at thier best. :) :)
A very nice car indeed and with the single cylinder motor and wooden frame easily buildable. Even for the boys.

Steve.
 
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fasteddy said:
Annie,
While the boys are meadowlarking about in their fields of dreams the ever practical young woman is presenting plans that will be hard pressed to be realized by the boys at thier best. :) :)
A very nice car indeed and with the single cylinder motor and wooden frame easily buildable. Even for the boys.

Steve.
Click to expand...

What I love about these designs Steve is that they were developed during the war when French civilians had little or no access to petrol and materials were in short supply. Necessity being the mother of invention and with bicycle based tech being easy to come by these kinds of simple vehicles were the natural result.
I'm reasonably certain that this particular wee car could be easily adapted to work as a three wheeler with bicycle pedals and having the motor up front and easily accessible would be a major plus as well.

DiagramCyclecar2_zpsda03258b.jpeg
 
I apprenticed as a chef in the early 60's. Both 9 months in a kitchen and then 3 months in a government trade school every year to help us get ready to run a kitchen. It was a trip of the first order because the entire kitchen staff were made up of refugees from Hitlers Europe. So were the instructors at the school.

The head chef was French and would get tucked into a bottle of wine and then when we had our lunch he would sit there and talk about the occupation of France and the city of Lyon where he lived. My favorite story of his was when as a young apprentice himself he overstayed the evening curfew at work drinking and then decided to try and get home.
He almost made it until he thought how it would be a wonderful idea to stand on a park bench across from his house and denounce Hitler in the most derogatory terms.
The Gestapo of course didn't care for it and he became their guest.

An SS officer would come in for a rabbit dish that only my chef made to the officers liking, using the chef's mothers recipe. When some one else made it the head chef was called out to the table to explain. My chef was told by the officer when he got back to the kitchen that the officer had called in all his favours and he would never be let go again. The chef said it was the longest week of his life.

He said that by this time the Gestapo had made their point known many, many times and there was no chance that he was going back. The sous chef would sit beside him listening which was interesting since he was a Hitler Youth leader.
All the other cooks at the table were refugees from Eastern Europe.

Those times were indeed hard. Interesting to hear from the people that lived them.

Steve.
 
I apprenticed as a chef in the early 60's. Both 9 months in a kitchen and then 3 months in a government trade school every year to help us get ready to run a kitchen. It was a trip of the first order because the entire kitchen staff were made up of refugees from Hitlers Europe. So were the instructors at the school.

The head chef was French and would get tucked into a bottle of wine and then when we had our lunch he would sit there and talk about the occupation of France and the city of Lyon where he lived. My favorite story of his was when as a young apprentice himself he overstayed the evening curfew at work drinking and then decided to try and get home.
He almost made it until he thought how it would be a wonderful idea to stand on a park bench across from his house and denounce Hitler in the most derogatory terms.
The Gestapo of course didn't care for it and he became their guest.

An SS officer would come in for a rabbit dish that only my chef made to the officers liking, using the chef's mothers recipe. When some one else made it the head chef was called out to the table to explain. My chef was told by the officer when he got back to the kitchen that the officer had called in all his favours and he would never be let go again. The chef said it was the longest week of his life.

He said that by this time the Gestapo had made their point known many, many times and there was little chance that he was going back. The sous chef would sit beside him listening which was interesting since he was a Hitler Youth leader.
All the other cooks at the table were refugees from Eastern Europe.

Those times were indeed hard.

Steve.
 
Annie,
I keep hearing that I should write a book about what I've seen and done and the people that I've met. I think it would be boring reading.
I seem to have that kind of personality that people trust and they open up and talk about their lives where they won't talk to anyone even their families.

Case in point. I did a lot of work for a chap in New Hampshire who was a marine in Viet Nam. Over two years time he told me what happened to him while he was there. His wife told me that I learned more about what happened in those two years than she had heard in their 30 years together.

I consider it a great honor to be trusted that much.

Steve.
 
Intrepid Wheelwoman said:
What I love about these designs Steve is that they were developed during the war when French civilians had little or no access to petrol and materials were in short supply. Necessity being the mother of invention and with bicycle based tech being easy to come by these kinds of simple vehicles were the natural result.
I'm reasonably certain that this particular wee car could be easily adapted to work as a three wheeler with bicycle pedals and having the motor up front and easily accessible would be a major plus as well.

DiagramCyclecar2_zpsda03258b.jpeg
Click to expand...

My dear Intrepid Wheelwoman, between you, Silverbear, Tom, and Fishguts and, heck, pretty much everybody here, I have been sufficiently inspired to begin actively pursuing my next project. I intend to build a Cyclekart-inspired three wheeler. It will by no means count as a motorized bicycle, but this thread seems the best place to talk about it.
For more information on cyclekarts, I recommend these folks:
http://www.cyclekarts.com/
Below is one of many very rough thumbnail sketches of my idea. I'd be using a sectioned canoe and sheet aluminum for the body, steel box tubing for the frame, and the back part of a motorcycle for the engine/drive train. I have been planning out, on many many sheets of graph paper, the various methods of accomplishing this. I'm on a rigid budget, so this will likely require two or three years and more than one portion of future income tax refunds. But I have begun the planning, measuring, and logistics. I also plan to learn stick-welding soon. Building motorbikes has been a fantastic learning experience: it taught me many things, and showed me a bazillion other things that I don't know how to do yet. But that's okay, I'll learn.
 

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Allen Wrench,
Here here is some more inspiration as if you need it. Well worth joining to see the workmanship.
Silverbear and I have often talked about using the other half of the canoe that was used for the sidecar build as a body for a velocar. Any thoughts about what size of motorcycle you would use?

Money. It always stands in the way of genius doesn't it.

Steve.

http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/cyclekart/
 
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