The 1951 Hoffmann is a
three-wheeled
A three-wheeler is a vehicle with three wheels. Some are motorized tricycles, which may be legally classed as motorcycles, while others are tricycles without a motor, some of which are human-powered vehicles and animal-powered vehicles.
Overvi ...
car created by Michael Hoffmann, a shop foreman from
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
.
Only one Hoffmann was ever made; it is currently part of the collection at the Lane Motor Museum in
Nashville
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...
,
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
, USA.
Design
The car is notable for its plethora of unconventional and often user-hostile design elements.
[Archived a]
Ghostarchive
and th
Wayback Machine
These include:
*Windows that are raised or lowered with a strap that the user pulls, and held in place with eyelets and pegs
*
Suicide door
A suicide door is an automobile door hinged at its rear rather than the front. Such doors were originally used on horse-drawn carriages, but are rarely found on modern vehicles, primarily because they are perceived as being less safe than a fron ...
s and a driving position that make ingress and egress extremely difficult
*A starter awkwardly placed by the driver's right hip
*A fuel filler tube which goes from the roof, directly through the cabin of the car
*Front wheels that are farther apart than the length of the wheelbase
*A linear rather than H-shaped
shift pattern with a neutral between each gear
*The rear wheel is placed immediately behind the driver, with a large portion of the car behind it
*Rear-wheel steering
*The combination of the previous two features mean that the car has an extremely high tendency to slew.
*An engine located on the same pivot as the rear wheel steering mechanism, so that the engine moves with the wheel when the car is steered
*Rearview mirrors positioned so that they are perfectly blocked by the
A-pillar
The pillars on a car with permanent roof body style (such as four-door sedans) are the vertical or nearly vertical supports of its window area or greenhouse—designated respectively as the ''A, B, C'' and (in larger cars such as 4-door stat ...
*Two-stroke engine, which requires engine oil to be continuously mixed into the fuel supply
*Single-cylinder engine, which causes greater vibration than multi-cylinder engines
*Rear-mounted engine that is dependent on air cooling, but the lack of a fan causes overheating when idling
References
{{Reflist
External links
Jalopnik article on the car
Cars introduced in 1951
Cars of Germany