Old Car

May 1953

As lovers of science and innovation, few things delight us more than tinkering around with spare parts. In our 138 years of publication, we've showcased scores of similar-minded inventors who could turn scrap heaps into motorcycles, robots, and four-wheelers. These people aren't just hobbyists, they're visionaries capable of imagining great machinery from what others had deemed broken and useless.
While people have created a great number of things from scratch, cars stand out as the prime project for professional engineers and bored tinkerers alike. We don't blame them - who wouldn't enjoy taking their invention for a celebratory spin upon completion? Join us as we take a look at some of the more curious vehicles assembled in garages over the past hundred years, and decide for yourself whether they're clever or the work of a crackpot.

  We begin in the spring of 1920, where a Pennsylvanian farm owner known simply as Mr. Geissinger has assembled a tractor from a stationary gasoline engine. In those days, stationary engines were used to run power tools and mechanisms like circular saws and pumps. An unlikely candidate for powering a car, sure, but its maker came up with enough scrap materials to convert it into a tractor. Granted, it doesn't look much like a tractor at all, but we won't spoil you -- take a look inside to see how Mr. Geissinger's work turned out.
Then you have your series of go-kart-like vehicles, your bicycle-automobile hybrids, and even a couple of cage-like cars. All of the cars we cover in this gallery were made for personal use, and out of amusement, but all of them reflect how mainstream vehicles have developed over the years. A "motorized Ark" built in 1927 might resemble a modern-day funeral limousine, but during that period, it was a novel camping trailer equipped with a toilet, a stove and a shower. Converting the chassis of a truck into a camping trailer is one thing, but to install a hotel room's worth of amenities speaks for the dedication its creator had to his craft.
Elsewhere, you'll find that most home-based automakers weren't professional engineers or mechanics, but teenagers and artists pursuing a practical diversion. Not all of us carry a lot of automobile know-how, but with a little ingenuity, research, and an enviable hodgepodge of scrap items, you'll be hosting joyrides in your washing machine-jeep hybrid in no time.

Click through our gallery to see how past hobbyists made their "midget autos," egg-shaped cars, kitchen-equipped Fords and more.

The Nissan Juke is Less a Family Hauler Than an Efficient City Car

Micro Machine In test drives, the Juke proved compact and punchy—ideal for darting through New York City traffic. From $18,980; nissanusa.com Courtesy Nissan

 

The crossover SUV has reached a crossroads. Models like the Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V have grown so large and homogenized that they’ve become the new family SUV. Bite-sized boxes such as the Scions, Kia Souls and Nissan Cubes have plenty of attitude, but they’ve never been sporty enough to be taken seriously. That’s what’s so refreshing about the Nissan Juke: it pushes the evolution of the crossover into something beyond the shrunken SUV—more like a unexpectedly sporty, cityfriendly super-hatchback in which every component represents the latest trickle-down of advanced technology into affordable vehicles.

At the core is Nissan’s new 1.6-liter DIG (Direct Injection Gasoline) engine. a turbocharger combines with direct injection to wring 188 horsepower and 177 pound-feet of torque out of the little four-cylinder. As a result, the Juke can churn from 0 to 60 mph in about seven seconds. It can also get 27/32 mpg. Nissan’s continuously variable transmission contributes to that efficiency by using a beltand-pulley system to access a continuous band of gear ratios so that the engine can run at the most efficient speed at all times. Optional all-wheel drive comes with a torque-vectoring system like those usually found on pricey sports cars. Sensors measure wheel speed, steering angle, yaw rate and gear position, and a central computer independently adjusts the amount of torque applied to each rear wheel, keeping the car stable during quick turns and highway merges and on slick uphills.

Inside, in addition to the standard gadget array (Bluetooth, optional backup camera), Nissan’s digital I-CON (integrated Control) system switches between climate controls and a series of preset drive modes at the press of a button. and in a final flourish, an in-dash G-force meter measures acceleration forces, just for kicks.