21st Century car
The Reliant Robin is an unabashed design classic of UK motoring. From desirable during the 1970’s fuel crisis, to ridiculous icon of business enterprise in 1980s and 1990s UK TV hit Only Fools and Horses, its fuel consumption of 70 miles per gallon was a winner. With an equally evocative name and distinctive shape, UK engineers have unveiled the CLEVER car, or ‘Compact Low Emission Vehicle for Urban Transport’ vehicle giving 1970’s sensibility 21st century sophistication.

The micro-car
The CLEVER car is a three-wheeled, gas-powered vehicle designed to reduce city pollution and traffic congestion. Measuring only one metre wide, it’s specially designed for cities and combines the safety of a micro-car and the manoeuvrability of a motorbike. Its strengthened frame protects the driver and passenger in a crash. The car also boasts top speeds of around 60mph (or 100kph) and running on compressed natural gas it can do the equivalent of 108 miles per gallon of petrol, reducing CO2 emissions by a third.

The CLEVER car is the result of a three-year international project with partners including BMW. Matt Barker and Ben Drew, research officers at the University of Bath’s Centre for Power Transmission and Motion Control, developed a novel tilting chassis concept to keep the vehicle stable in corners. Their hydraulic active tilt system is electronically controlled, unlike on a motorcycle where the rider controls how far to tilt the vehicle. The driver turns the steering wheel and the tilt system works out the rest.

A safe and stylish drive
The car has an aluminium frame and plastic bodywork. As Dr Jos Darling, senior lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bath says, ‘The fact that it has a stylish design, can carry a passenger, is not open to the weather and is as high as a conventional car, will mean it will be more popular with motorists than previous novel city vehicles.

‘It costs less to run, is quieter and is less polluting, and this will make it popular with environmentalists. Its strengthened safety frame makes it very safe for the driver in accidents. We think the CLEVER vehicle is the way forward in city motoring’.

If jumping into a bubble car seems too indulgently retro, we may soon be test-driving the capsule car of the future.