My Elio Alternate Project Is Underway.

[84mpg]

Well the first test drive happened today, accidentally.

.. after welding in the gearchange mount and a few other little things, I started it up while sitting on the side of the frame, pressed the clutch in, put it in first, let the clutch out, fell backwards when it jerked forwards, and there I was laying on my back on the frame with the BEX idling forward without concern, heading straight towards the rear of my forklift.

... and that was when I discovered the brakes are working just fine, after just barely getting my toes to the pedal while on my back

.... I had better mount a seat next me thinks!

GREAT to hear your brakes are in working order!!!

 

[84mpg]

There seems to be two ways the BEX can go. First, make it a toy like Slingshot and sell a couple thousand for people to play with. Second, make it a practical commuter vehicle for 2 people with a reasonable amount of luggage space and sell a million. Cars do not sell because of price and gas milage alone, they need to be usable.

As to buying two, one with and one without a back seat. Try selling that idea to the wife when she wants you to go to the grocery store with her. I guess you could get a tow bar and pull one behind the other.

Why would I use a tow bar? She can drive the other one herself, if she wants to go that badly with me to the grocery store. According to her, she's a better driver than me anyway.

Have you seen an overhead shot of the Elio? The overall width is only like 20" - 24" in the rear, something like that. I'm assuming the BEX (the vehicle, not Mark) will be similar in width. It'll be very narrow in the rear... like one old fashioned, paper grocery sack width..

I have a feeling the BEX, Elio or any other enclosed 3-wheeler is going to be more of a vehicle to run to the convenience store for a loaf of bread and not to get a week's worth of groceries... unless the wife (or better yet, the husband) is left at home and the back seat is used to stack the sacks.

 

[Hog]

GREAT to hear your brakes are in working order!!!

I did that myself once, while working on hot rodding a 1957 chevy, I had a folding chair in it to steer it with, well, it started rolling backwards so I stomped the brakes, and promptly fell over backwards. Much panicked hand pushing on the brakes finally got it stopped before I hit a tree that would have stopped me one way or the other.

 

[JEBar]

There seems to be two ways the BEX can go.

we all have our preferences but the bottom line is, the BEX will be what Mark chooses to produce .... from day one he has openly shown the steps forward and sometimes backward .... the reality is, there is no way the end product will be perfect in the mind of everyone who considers buying one .... we all have things that are important to us that will play a part in our decision to buy or not .... at this stage many things have been locked in for the first generation BEX Trikes and none of us should expect a major redesign to add or remove anything .... as time goes on, I have no doubt that future models evolve to meet market demands .... I have no doubt that it will be successful and will continue to strongly support the BEX no matter if I buy one or not

 

[Keith Stone]

First comment on this thread longtime member (8years or so). Mark what an incredible amount of work you have done, glad to see the constant updates you consistently provide, glad you survived the test drive, a seat a windshield maybe a seatbelt a couple adjustments and your there with prototype number one in the rear view mirror (or backup camera). Glad to see you build it yourself instead of shelling out huge piles of cash for someone to build and taking all the glory. I live in utah and hope to see a Bex or whatever your car name will be parked in my drive way one day. Just a side note If you put your bex into production I may have to throw a kubota diesel in it and make a rat rod, Thank you for sharing your time, money, blood, sweat and maybe tears into this project and the time to update us!

 

[Mark BEX]

First comment

Nice post Keith, always appreciated. Today was a lovely day, but these type posts can really improve one's mood on a day that things do go quite as well ..

........................

Today worked out well. The new vertical for the gearchange, pink arrows, allowed me to run a tube horizontally to mount the stock throttle pedal to it, was scratching my head how I was going to do it, but got lucky and it was quite easy after all

The office is looking rather complete, as soon as the seat is properly mounted, and the throttle cable connected, I might be able to drive it after an extensive safety check.

 

[84mpg]

Nice post Keith, always appreciated. Today was a lovely day, but these type posts can really improve one's mood on a day that things do go quite as well ..

........................

Today worked out well. The new vertical for the gearchange, pink arrows, allowed me to run a tube horizontally to mount the stock throttle pedal to it, was scratching my head how I was going to do it, but got lucky and it was quite easy after all

View attachment 25607


The office is looking rather complete, as soon as the seat is properly mounted, and the throttle cable connected, I might be able to drive it after an extensive safety check.

View attachment 25606

View attachment 25605

AWESOME!!! (The vehicle that is! Jury is still out on Mark! )

 

[Mark BEX]

Smooth day today, and some of the good fortune I have been getting with things fitting is uncanny.
Make the seat runner supports, which you can see were nothing more than 2 x longitudinals, with some guides for the wheels on the rear halves, and a latitudinal to mount the front of the seat (se the 2 small holes), that also acts as a chassis crossmember.

The left mounting offset of the VW Jetta seat is just perfect, like it was designed for the BEX, and the fore/aft movement, and the huge jacking height can suit anyone from 4 foot to 7 foot tall, simply amazing seat for this application.

The throttle cable is factory stock, uncanny fortune that the brake master cylinder booster mount was the right angle and right place for the cable to come though to the throttle pedal (white arrow). I merely made an extension to reach it with a small heim joint and metal extension (red arrow).

 

[84mpg]

Don’t get arrested when you try that hot rod out on the roads. We don’t want to have to do a GoFundMe fund drive to bail you out!

 

[Mark BEX]

Don’t get arrested when you try that hot rod out on the roads. We don’t want to have to do a GoFundMe fund drive to bail you out!

There would have to be policemen on the streets patrolling for that to happen. There's none. There are no highway patrol cars here at all or suburban traffic patrol cops otherwise, zero, none, nilch..

Even if there was, you would just drive between 12 and 1pm, because everyone stops for lunch, police, bad guys etc lol! Reminds me of Ralph and Sam, and the time clock ..