Whats been happening at Tri Pod Cars -

We've been very busy! Generation two of the Tri Pod 1 chassis is now all but complete. We have used this mild re design as an opportunity to make the kit easier to put together by building in various brackets for things that were previously a bit of a pest to position and mount such as the seat panel, dash panel and engine cover. We have also opened up a few clearances here and there (sidepods) and simplified many aspects of the overall design to make it simpler for us to build and therefore possible to keep a cap on price rises. The steering column bracket now has a series of holes for fore and aft placement. All aluminum panels are now laser cut as well as many other plates on the chassis. Overall it looks quite a bit smarter and professional. Pictures coming soon once it is powder coated.

Thought continues but no start made yet on a Tri Pod 2 prototype. The Tri Pod 2 will address most of the questions and issues that some folk have had with the one. ie. assymetrical seating, no proper roll over protection, proper seats, more space for tall poeple, more storage, more passenger legroom, greater adjustability of driver ergonomics etc etc. In no way is it a replcement for the 1 though. The 1 will remain as the quicker sportier more pure version.

The basic design at this stage (of the two) is about 4 inches more room in length of the cockpit, about 4 inches greater width at its widest point and about 2.5" in the footwell. A sunken floor with normal race style seats rather than our seat panel. Full height roll over hoops (ugly but responsible I suppose) and adjustable pedals and steering column. The fuel tank will be shallower to allow passenger feet underneath. The bodywork will largely be the same to avoid unessesary re working of something that we have already invested very heavily in. I would expect to have something to photograph in around 12 months.

Prototype update -

I'm not sure if you realise it but the Orange original has now been on the road for 2.5 years. It has been to the most Northern, most Eastern and most Southern points of the Australian mainland and the highest town (Cabramurra in the Snowies, yeah I didn't know either). In that time it has done 45,000kms of which 5000kms has been on corrugated dirt roads. It has hung together very nicely having not left me on the side of the road yet. We did have a bit of a mudguard falling off issue on the Cape York trip but the brackets have been re designed since then. I am very satisfied with the durability of the design and the construction. Lightweight helps as does a fair bit over engineering. I can't stand things breaking so everything on the car is maybe a little heavier than needed but I am no fan of standing on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. The original is now looking a little tatty hence partly the urgency of getting the new demonstrator on the road but we will keep driving it until something fails. Intending to get down south again this year for the Moto GP and once the ZX14 version is on road I would like to tackle an East West crossing in convoy. The most Western point awaits us!

RACQ Motor Fest -

We will have a couple of cars at Motor Fest this year. If you live in the Brisbane area come out and take a look. Its a great show, plenty to see and it costs bugger all to get in. The 12th of July is the day (a Sunday) at Eagle Farm Racecourse. Usually there are around 700 cars and bikes on display.

There are now 3 Tri Pods on the road in Qld with another two coming very soon. Not long now and we can have a drunken get together!

Donors -

For those wondering we now offer the following donor fitments. There more parts available such as fuel tanks that take the original donor pump, wiring looms and radiators for the first three, but the rest are being worked on.

Honday Firestorm VTR1000F - 2002 - 2007

Suzuki Bandit 1250 GSF1250 - 2007 - current

Honda Blackbird CBR1100XX - 2002 - 2007

Triumph ST1050/GT1050 - 2005 - current

Kawasaki ZX14R - 2006 - current

We have thoughts of offering a VFR800 Honda fitment and of course ultimately the imfamous Busa.

Much work has been done over the last 6 months to make a kit easier to put together. The Gen2 chassis helps but so do a number of sub assemblies now available such as gearshift kit, and wiring looms. We will also glass in the bonnet mount bracket and add reinforcing to the bonnet as we suggest if you request it (at a small extra charge). These three things are perhaps the biggest pests in any build.

Tri Pod Cars in the U.S. -

I have just gotten back from visiting Brian at Brian Ball Motorsports in Denver Colorado. He is our North American connection and is currently building a Tri Pod 1 kit we shipped over earlier in the year. He is powering it with a FZ1 Yamaha of current spec. It will be a blast to drive with about 140BHP on tap. While I was there I investigated donor possibilities and discussed them and other local issues with Brian. The upshot was that maybe the above mentioned ZX14 version might be the best donor for the USA as they are reasonably plentiful and are still a current model. Many of our other donors such as Bandit 1250 and the CBR1100XX were not sold as much in the US as in Australia and therefore aren't really suitable for export. Brian is a Yamaha fan and FZ1s are thicker on the ground, hence the detuned R1 engined build. Brian and his assistant Mikey (Brian doing the driving of course) are pictured below wheeling out one of his other creations, a Riot, another Yamaha powered machine.

Budd in North Carolina is also a recipient of some of our parts and is continuing his scratch built chassis from our plans. He is also employing a FZ1 but it is his own still registered motorcycle and he intends to join it frame and all to our front 2/3rds making for a quicker build and no need to re register. It will be interesting to see how this turns out. The Tri Pod engine cover should disguise most of the hybrid nature of his build and as he is using the rest of our bodywork it should look quite similar to a normal full chassis Tri Pod 1. The catch with the 'frame on hybrid approach' though is weight distribution but I am confident Budd will do his best to both properly engineer the bike frames fitment to the Tri Pod chassis design and move as much weight forward as possible.

We have quite a bit of interest from America for the TP1 kit and hopefully sooner rather than later a few of the interested parties can get together with Brian for a test drive.

Slingshot test drive -

Speaking of test drives, while I was enjoying the hospitality of the friendly folk across the Pacific I also rented a Polaris Slingshot. I was keen to drive this production three wheeled design and understand what Polaris had acheived and where my design stood in relation to it. I came away a bit disappointed with it really as its not much fun to drive but it was an instructive experience. In my book to give a three wheeler some hope of handling in an interesting way it needs to be wide, low and as light as possible. Polaris didn't do that (well actually their design is wider than mine, but the other two factors they ignored). The outcome is bit of weird cross between an ATV and an old ute. You sit quite high up in it, its heavy to chuck around and makes a gawd awful noise (both the engine and driveline). I wanted to like it more as it looks cool in a Transformers kind of way and is certainly a nicely balanced styling job and of course is produced with the might of a major recreation vehicle manufacturer so presumably quite well screwed together. It looks well crafted in the flesh but the Slingshot forum tends to suggest quite a few little niggles and some not quite so small...

My full review is here.

ZX14 Version -

Work has begun on our new demonstrator Tri Pod 1 and its going to be our first ZX14R build. If we can keep the weight down to around 380 kgs by using a few aluminium parts here and there and carbon bodywork the resultant power to weight ratio is 500kgs per metric tonne! Which is about 4.4 pounds per HP. THis compares quite favourably with the likes of the Porsche 918 and Pagani Huayra both with slightly over 4 pounds per HP. Of course their price tags are 50 fold the price of knocking together a Tri Pod 1ZX. In turn ours does not have quite as much grip at the rear. All good fun though. Oh and in case you thought comparing the ZX versions power to weight with irrelevant supercars was in fact, irrelevant, the Corvette, AMG Benz and Porsche 911 are all around 7.5 odd pounds per HP so I am very much looking forward to test driving our new creation and understanding what mental acceleration is in a car rather than on a bike. For reference the ZX14R as a bike does 0 - 250kph in around 13 seconds. 100mph comes up from a standing start in under 6 seconds. Adding the extra weight of the Tri Pod chassis will naturally knock these figures around but it will still be quite ridiculous and not for the faint of heart. It is our intention to have the new demonstrator on the road by the end of the year. For those interested a few other random cars and there pound/HP numbers.

Golf GTI - 14

Ford Focus ST - 13

Morgan Three Wheeler - 14

Nissan 370Z - 10

Polaris Slingshot - 10

I suspect the fuel economy when treading gently will be surprisingly good too for those that care about such trivialities and the ZX14 standard instruments have live fuel economy readout too.

I would like to finish off this update by thanking all those who have supported myself and my assistants so far. Tri Pod is growing and it only grows because of the faith of those that order a kit. If you like the look of the car but are not ordering one just yet it would be fantastic if you could spread the word. Not really that many folk know we exist yet and I cannot afford a massive ad campaign so any coverage we get is a help. For those that aren't sure how this thing might drive, come and see us for a test thrash and possibly be converted. You certainly won't have driven anything so light!

Kind Regards, Andrew.