The Insane Bond Bug Could Actually Inspire A Less Insane Polaris Slingshot

I’m not a big Polaris Slingshot fan. A three-wheeled, two-seat car that’s as big as a five-passenger Mitsubishi Mirage with no weather protection or real luggage capacity is not my thing, and bodywork that makes a Lamborghini Countach seem as conservative as a Nissan Stanza isn’t something that will be of interest to a guy that’s driven grey or black German sedans and station wagons for the last thirty years.

Since I’m not in the target market for a Slingshot, my views on it probably don’t count for much, but I still think I could make a better Slingshot – not necessarily something I would buy, but less something I absolutely wouldn’t buy. Have no fear, though: it will still be stupid.

Jack Of All Trades, Remotely Good At None

Our own resident fan of bizarre vehicles Mercedes Streeter has echoed my feelings toward the Polaris three-wheeler:

The Polaris Slingshot is one of those vehicles that doesn’t make any sense. It’s technically a terrible car, and while it’s legally a motorcycle, it’s awful at being one.

I’d be inclined to trust the verdict of a person that simultaneously owns a brace of motorbikes, a city bus, Kei cars, several Smarts, a 1940s Plymouth, a latter-day MG, and even one of my old grey station wagons, wouldn’t you?

Having said that, anyone would agree that on the right road and perfect day, driving a Slingshot is a so-fun-it’s-gotta-be-illegal experience. If it had one more wheel, it actually would indeed be illegal, since four pieces of rolling stock constitutes an actual car subject to all of the emissions and safety equipment that bog down even the smallest and simplest vehicles today. The Slingshot is the embodiment of all the things you loved about your old lightweight, tossable 100 horsepower car from the eighties, but it’s got twice that power. No wonder that Mercedes claims that a Slingshot is one of the favorite press loaners she’s ever had the privilege of driving.

There are two key problems with the Slingshot. Or, if we don’t consider them to be “problems,” we can at least accept that they’re likely the reasons that the Slingshot isn’t more popular.

First, you have a rather large vehicle that offers essentially no more practicality than a motorcycle. See the photo below of the Slingshot Mercedes Streeter reviewed, freshly et with rain? The seat is only free of raindrops because they fell on Mercedes instead.

You’ll need to wear a rain suit when driving it any distance that could involve precipitation, and forget using it in the freezing cold. There are no enclosures offered for weather protection with the exception of a bizarre roof-like structure on some models.

There’s also an available fabric sun shade, but to enclose the Slingshot you’ll need a painfully ungainly aftermarket roof system that retails for nearly five thousand dollars. For the $25,000 base price, you’d think that a lot of potential buyers might want something at least a little more useful. Besides, it’s not like a motorcycle that you can tuck away in the corner of a garage from November till April in northern climates (if you even have a garage).

The second big issue with the Slingshot has to be the appearance, which again is part of the appeal for some and controversy for others. To some, it’s the Batmobile they’ve always lusted after; to others, it’s an aesthetic abomination. Sadly, I fall into the latter category, and think it’s a bit of a mess.

While even the most outrageous looking sports cars (or cars in general) have a shape that you can comprehend as a unified whole with lines that lead your eye comfortably to a start and finish, the Slingshot proudly does not unless maybe you’re looking at it from a direct side view (it looks very much like a car that was sketched up in profile). Polaris also went the distance by adding graphic color blocking on some versions to make it appear even more disjointed. I understand the “look at me” Halloween costume factor of the styling, but think it could be done in a far more cohesive way.

Could we keep the outrageously entertaining elements of this strange vehicle while still making it just a little bit less insane from a car standpoint? Or is that from a trike standpoint? Regardless of what it’s called, I think there is a way, so let’s get started.

A Tale Of Two Karens

Trying to resolve each of these two challenges, I was drawn to a somewhat similar vehicle from Great Britain from half a century ago. This funny little car was a work of genius from a respected British designer, and revisiting his masterful work might yield the solutions we need. The car was the Bond Bug.

Ogle Design’s Tom Karen’s work as an industrial designer ranged from the delightfully cartoonish and iconic Raleigh “Chopper” bicycle all the way to the restrained Reliant Scimitar GTE “shooting brake.” Much of his consulting work was done with the firm Reliant, one of the last makers of “microcars” in the postwar Europe where much of the population could barely afford a “real” automobile. The three-wheeled Regal and Robin are arguably Reliant’s most infamous creations.

Possibly seeing the writing on the wall for microcars, in the early sixties Tom proposed a wedge-shaped three-wheeler marketed as a fun, proto-sports car for young buyers instead of a this-is-all-you-can-afford trike proposition of most microcars (which were getting harder to sell with more affordable “normal” cars now becoming available). Reliant nixed the idea as being too strange and off-brand, but when they acquired dying microcar maker Bond in 1969, Karen was given his chance to make this seemingly narcotic-induced dream a reality.

A fiberglass body was fitted over a new chassis that utilized many parts from the three-wheeled Reliant Regal; the two low-slung seats were accessed by a lift-up canopy that included the windscreen and side curtains. All but a handful were sold in Tangerine Orange.

The 700 or 750cc inline four located under a box between the driver and passenger’s legs could power the Bug to over 75 miles an hour for the brave, but fun would be had at any speed. Note the cantilevered steering wheel support.

In principle, the Bug sounded like a great idea, but despite conscious marketing to the youths, the idea of an unorthodox fun car fell flat. It didn’t help that the price was virtually identical to a base Mini, a pretty entertaining piece in its own right and a bona fide Real Car. Only 2,268 Bugs found buyers over a four-year run before Reliant killed it and the Bond brand for good in 1974.

In many ways, the Bug is a lot like a Slingshot, but it obviously has weather protection because I’ve been told that it can rain in Britain. Both Slingshot and Bug are three-wheelers, though with the two cars there’s a big difference in which end gets a pair. Indeed, the Bug is reportedly a hoot to drive if you’re careful, but if rapid cornering is on the menu, you’ll be better off hooning the thing in reverse. If you watched Top Gear, you’re aware of a single-front-wheel car’s propensity for becoming inverted in turns.

One of the first production Bond Bugs was procured by Lotus Cars and quickly ended up on its roof after a new engineer took it for a spin. Colin Chapman promptly fired the poor sod until he personally drove another example of the orange wedge and flipped it himself before rounding even one curve. The sacked engineer was reinstated; a smart move since this particular employee was unsung hero Mike Kimberly, a man who would take over and save Lotus after Chapman’s passing in 1982 and also return as CEO to rescue the firm once again in 2005.

The Land Speeder driven by Luke Skywalker in the first 1977 Star Wars film appears to be floating thanks to pre-CGI trickery (mirrors reflecting the ground), but the rolling mockup you see on screen sits over a Bond Bug chassis.

Another prominent appearance of the Bug was in the 1998 video for Robbie William’s Millenium where he clowns about as a fake James Bond. The punchline of the video is at the end when Robbie’s character is shown driving off not in an Aston but instead his Bond Bug. It’s cast in the role of a dorky loser’s economy car, yet despite that, some commenters on YouTube demand to know what it is because “it’s the coolest looking car I’ve ever seen.”

It certainly is cool looking, and also one of the first true “wedge” cars made, predating the production Countach and Giugiaro’s Lotus Esprit. With the side tumblehome, it’s almost pyramid-shaped in a manner similar to the Citroen Karin show car that appeared a full decade later in 1980.

The wedge isn’t always the answer, but I’ll admit that it seems to be for me. I certainly think this shape might be ideal for turning the limited-use Slingshot into a weapon of back-road mass destruction, regardless of climate.

Would You Prefer That I Call It The Sling Blade?

To make a viable New Bond Bug, the biggest change would be an about-face alternation of the three points defining the plane that the car/trike sits on. Yes, that single front wheel will now reside in the back where it can just push the thing and not be the primary selector in the direction of travel. We now have a layout identical to the Slingshot that’s ideal for hard cornering; in fact, the whole thing can be essentially just like a Slingshot, but we’ll clean up the looks significantly.

Up front, the nose is much simpler with recessed Bond Bug-style exposed headlamps. Wraparound turn signals break up the front fenders and accentuate the width of the Bug, but the exaggerated Batmobile insanity of the Slingshot is gone.

Here you can see an animation of the original Slingshot with this “Bugshot” (or is it “Slingbug”?):

What about weather protection and safety? I don’t want to make a convertible; I want something like the Slingshot where, when open, the majority of the sides of the car are open, and the windshield isn’t really even a typical upright piece of glass. Can we really make a car that looks perfect with the weather enclosure both off and on? Absolutely, we can.

The Bond Bug wedge shape is the solution to our problem. First, if we hollow out a passenger area in that purely triangular-shaped profile vehicle, you get both a natural line for a tiny windscreen to direct air over the riders, and the remaining “loop” of the wedge at the back of the car would act as a rollbar instead of big metal loops above each seat. A “T” bar connects the hood area to the roll hoop.

You now have a driver and passenger experience almost identical to the Slingshot fun machine, but when the sky turns dark and stormy, the New Bug would have you covered, literally. Aluminum-framed glass or polycarbonate “gullwing” doors would snap in place on the “T” bar to create a roof and side covering, while a rear glass window could snap in or fold up to fully seal the passenger compartment. If anything, the Bug looks even more outrageous and futuristic with the doors/roof in place; sunshades can block too much sun from baking the occupants. The centrally-parked windshield wiper would be disabled when the gullwings are removed, as would the washer jets, so don’t get any ideas of messing with your passenger.

Mind you, the gullwings would need to incorporate the windshields as well; you’d need to snap off the low mini-windscreens before installing the gullwings (the reason being that you’d end up with a big line across your field of vision if you didn’t).

This animation below better shows the view with and without the gullwing door/roofs. Yes, there would be sunshades for the upper section, and there are Delorean-style openings in the side for air or McDonald’s runs.

There’s a tiny trunk, but you can also see slots below the taillights that would accept a carrying rack for the gullwing doors, allowing you to enjoy the open-air experience without fear of rain. The rear window glass could be removed or slid down to stash behind the trunk area.

The dashboard picks up the look of the body with sharp angles similar to the Slingshot. Switches for things like the hazard flashers and fog lamps would sit on the “T” bar overhead between the seats in front of a dome light and reading lamps.

With the choice of enclosing the cabin, we’d have to offer heat and air conditioning, but that’s not a big issue since whatever car would donate its drivetrain would absolutely have such features to steal as well. Speaking of “steal,” with the option of being able to have an actual interior, you could leave things in your locked car. Or, if the doors are off, just take the glovebox with you: it’s a rigid backpack you can carry along. That cargo box you can see sitting between the seatbacks could do the same.

However, if you enclose the new Bug, would that make this thing a “car” instead of a “motorcycle” and thus require things like emissions controls and safety restrictions to come into play? According to our Mercedes Streeter, the answer to that is a resounding “no.” As a three-wheeler, the Bug would classify as a trike and thus would be exempt from these laws, enclosed or not. Helmets would also not necessarily be required, especially in states without such laws for bikers to begin with.

This loophole seems too good to be true; let’s hope Polaris can come up with something all-weather like this before it’s too late!

No, Little Bond, I Expect You To Die

Despite the modifications to make this thing more usable, I think that this thing would still be too strange for the market and likely not be much of a hit. However, with the improvements I’ve suggested, we really could get the best of both worlds in this reimagined Bond Bug. None of the outrageous fun has been extracted by some of the practical additions. Most importantly, the styling is bizarre, but less exhibitionist.

Hell, I could even see myself getting one of these things as a daily to take to work. You think that I could substitute the Tangerine Orange for Titanium Grey Metallic?