The term ‘don’t put the cart before the horse’ never really had a place in automotive design, yet cars seemed to adapt the front engine layout as pretty much standard very early on. We’ve talked before about the advantages of other drivetrain layouts in the kinds of cars that Jason admires, and honestly with EVs now there is absolutely nothing that is impossible. The whole three- or two-box car form doesn’t need to exist anymore, and we would hope that manufacturers will start to have some fun with these limitless parameters.
A few Sunday evenings ago when our offices at The Autopian Tower were empty and the staff was minding their own business at home, our own Matt Hardigee took to our Slack channel with the concept of an ultra-long-hood touring coupe with a massive frunk and essentially nothing behind the two seats. He offered up the below scribble, including his ideas for putting the motor in back and filling the rest of the car with batteries wherever possible.
Another drawing shows what he wanted to do with the drivertrain:
Of course, you can see that he asked for the opinions from either the staff car designer or the staff…whatever the hell kind of designer I am. Since our painfully honest Adrian Clarke was conveniently asleep in 3AM Britain, I was stuck with the task of politely telling him that it might be difficult to operate something from that far back and the batteries might need a bit of rearranging. Then Jason, ever the voice of reason, pushed the crazy level up by suggesting a split-down-the-middle hood before the conversation blessedly changed gears from this wacky ass idea.
Still, the more that I looked at the scribbles later on, the initial insanity I saw in the concept started to dissipate. Don’t get me wrong; it’s still crazy, odd looking and unadvisable, but not totally unfeasible. The sketches actually reminded me of two cars.
One of those cars was the bonkers Bill Thomas Cheetah. This sixties sports car looked a bit like a Hot Wheels car come to life and was about the most ‘cab backwards’ car ever built. You couldn’t push the seats back any further and still have them in the car. This thing was built as a track-based Shelby Cobra competitor, and supposedly made Shelby’s car seem like a Camry by comparison; a total handful to drive.
source: Wikipedia
The other car that struck me as being similar in shape was the Fiskar Karma, an electric hybrid that became known for its rather unreliability mechanicals under a body with a rather curious design. The exaggerated wheels and fenders, combined with the long hood and giant headlights, seem to dwarf the tiny passenger compartment; it purports to be a sedan yet really has no business sporting four doors.
source: Wikipedia
Still, there is something striking about both cars, and one wonders if, in an alternate reality, both could be redeemed.
The Alternate Reality
The Cheetah concept is honestly too weird to die. It had been revived by some, but it would have been great to have seen some kind of more modern revival, maybe even in the late 2000s as an EV. At the same time, the Karma really needed a rethink, and if the shape had existed as an all-electric car with some of the odd proportions fixed I think it could have been a better proposition.
So here’s the alternate reality to make Matt’s dreams come true. When Fisker went nowhere, a group got together to do a major transformation of the car it into a high performance EV grand touring Cheetah revival.
The first step would be to alter the passenger compartment by essentially having the car driven from what was the Karma’s back seat, right over the electric motor. Up front, the enormous hood would cover a giant luggage area, accessible by side opening hoods as on pre-war cars; there really would be no other way to do it since you’d never get a single piece bonnet open. Batteries would be balanced in the center of the car under the luggage space and in the center console area of the passenger compartment to allow for a low floor where the passengers are.
Of course, no trunk lid would be needed; just small cargo space for a briefcase or small bag accessible by folding the seats forwards. You could back this thing into a space in a parking garage and it wouldn’t matter since you would still have access to all of the cargo on board. Of course, getting on the receiving end of a rear end collision would be interesting.
A few more details would be modified from the Karma original. The front light clusters would be lower profile for a larger luggage opening and visually lower the front of the car. Vents on the flanks of the car to visually break up the vast space.
The Cheetah would be battery only, unlike the hybrid original Karma, which in early 2010s technology would have meant rather limited range, but this is a sports machine like original Tesla roadster so that might not have been as much of an issue. Also, the layout of the batteries primarily under the hood means that changing out the packs in the future to exponentially better units would be relatively easy.
So was Matt crazy? His idea is certainly unconventional, but not without precedent. Ultimately, if nothing else it proves that nearly anything could be done in terms of layouts with EVs, and it’s time to start exploring more of these possibilities with real cars.
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Okay children, I use the term children because everyone here is apparently too young to recognize the first post WWII Jaguar with a foot cut off the back and two feet added to the front. This is death waiting to happen. No view in the front to steer in city situations. No weight in the front to allow steering at speeds. I would suggest an MGTD type hood, opening on both sides for better loading and unloading.
However I have a Bishop challenge. How about a car design where you have the option of interiors for different sized people? Take any vehicle you want, don’t worry about fabric etcetera just different interiors that could fit anyone from a petite woman too a large male comfortably. Not everybody but 75% of both sexes.? And did you actually disparage large weird tires? Okay no large weird tires on this design.
Possibly the batteries under the frunk would add some weight to the front. You might even be able to fit a small front motor up there, which would also give you AWD.
I’m not sure how to get around the visibility problem though, side facing cameras on the front maybe?
It would probably understeer like a bear.
It’s a Super Frunk! Super Frunk!
It’s Super Frunkin’ out!
It looks like the older brother of the Z3 clown shoe. I kinda like it.
Someone needs to start selling a bare electric skateboard that will serve as the platform for weird small-run fiberglass bodykits, the way the Beetle once did, so that ideas like this can be brought to life.
Should have started with the 1989 Batmobile!!!
Reminds me of those ’30s cars with long hoods, but except a trunk instead of an engine
How do frunks affect crash engineering? In a traditional front engine vehicle everything is in a fixed position as designed and tested, with a frunk that space is dependent upon what the user puts into it. Would having a week’s worth of luggage or a couple cases of PBR packed into a frunk change how the vehicle reacts in a head on collision?
Maybe the car could be built in back similar how the first-gen A-Class was in front: in case of a collision, the engine dives under the passenger compartment. So unless you are rear-ended by something massive like a bus, you may end up sitting on the hood of the other car, unharmed.
Wait. In the US everyone drives something massive like a bus — or a fat-faced pickup. Never mind.
maribert- I mean, we put our kids in the third row of a minivan (well..some people do…I’m WAY too cool for a minivan) so sitting way in back of a GT car shouldn’t be an issue. And this will have more space behind it than a minvan or SUV third row
This has the exact same proportions of these silly cargo bicycles with the huge load areas up front.
Why are they silly?
maribert- I agree, they aren’t silly. The reason they put it in front is twofold, I think. First, you’d need a terribly long chain to have the rider sit in front of the cargo, and in Amsterdam (where tehse seem to be quite popular) many of these are used for kid transport, and you want to see what those little rats are doing.
This is just a reverse ute
jludwik- if it were a real ute it would be open and you could pile things in front. Then you’d need forward view cameras in the nose to see around the crap and drive it.
I….I just don’t know. I am not opposed to the proportions …exactly…as I do love the old Cheetah. But there’s something about it that’s giving me the willies. I think it’s how much that side-opening lid reminds me of a coffin lid. Talk about going out in style!
Seriously the whole coffin vibe sort of reminds me of the Munsters Dragula
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUECVZkNk0Y&t=578s
But the 21st Century looks and electric powertrain are definitely Jetsons!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPnZpENoypo
I wonder what kind of sound that thing makes when you drive by?
The Autopian Tower? Did you guys get a good deal on an abandoned Carvana building?
Iwannadrive- yes, it’s true. If you see a former Carvana tower that’s full of broke ass Jeeps, that’s us
Burying the lede here: The Bishop has just revealed his first name to us, in the top image. Let the LinkedIn-searching furor commence!
blaiserbeam- now you’re gonna know that I’m that German pharmaceuticals executive!
Hello Hans!
I love this thing and would pay you all of my money* for one.
*about CAD $12.50
Tom- but in US dollars that would be…oh…never mind. Actually, this would be a good GT for Canada since if this was a front engined ICE car you’d never go anywhere in the snow. Just kinda sit there and spin in circles.
I mean, a good pill has to be aerodynamic. A good car has to be aerodynamic. The skills transfer.
That’s how you spell Jason Torchinsky in German, Ja? Either that or his twin :). Am i right? Am i right? please someone say that i am right!!!
I know it’s completely impractical, but I yearn for dual side-opening hoods like in ye olden days.
Would it be possible (well, practical) to make the frunk open from either side? Not split; the whole thing. Need to put this to the Phaeton’s trunk hinge team.
TOSSABL- there have obviously been a number of cars made with side opening one piece trunks or frunks, most notable being Jason’s favorite, the Skoda. Kind of an interesting idea as long as the frunk opens to the sidewalk side of the car! You could do a double acting hinge or even something like was done on the three-way tailgates of old station wagons, but it would certainly add more weight and complexity.
I didn’t think of the old tailgates: I was imagining a sliding-track hinge base like some cabinets. (but I had kinda handicapped my cognitive functioning earlier…)
I have a Thule cargo box that opens from either side. The latches on each side become hinges when they are locked.
Buick managed it in the late 40s-early 50s, so no reason why not. But there’s no reason you couldn’t have it open at the front as conventional hoods/frunks do. Hard-shell covers for pickup trucks are just as long.
Go just a tiny bit further, and invent the Reverse Pickup Truck. Make the trunk lid/cover removable, and add whatever you’d call the front-mounted equivalent of a tailgate (nosegate? frontgate?) and now you’ve got a wild GT coupe that can pick up a stack of eight-foot lumber in a pinch, too.
raygundan- you’ve kind of designed a scaled down cargo freighter for the road
I think Torch did that back on Jalopnik
What about some sort of pass-thru as in most modern cars backseats, but instead this would be a pass-thru at the feet of the passenger? Probably too complicated and small.
Andrew- what you’re suggesting I actually proposed on that last thing I did for a new rear engined VW where, with the pass thru open under the glove box and the seats folded down, you could carry objects almost as long as the car inside the vehicle. You’d have to go below the airbag location and I’m sure there are other issues as well. If it worked, and the opening was big enought, you could also put a pillow on the passenger’s floor and sleep lying down. Totally unsafe but it would happen
I kind of like it. It’s an extreme of the long hood / short deck platonic ideal of the GT, but one could put a pretty good size frunk even in something that’s not ridiculously disproportionate.
Big Deck Energy?
If this isn’t what the RR Spectre had under that massive bonnet I want to know why, what else could possibly be taking up that huge space
How many golf bags would fit in that frunk? Or dead hookers?