I recently attended the local swap meet and was struck by this interesting three wheeler micro truck. This being three wheeler week it seems to be a perfect time to share it with you all. I’d love to able to tell you all about but sadly I don’t have any idea what it might be. It did not have any markings or badges so the identity is a bit of mystery. Looks very similar to many other three wheelers but the details don’t match up perfectly to anything I can find. A bit different than the more common Cushman. It had an Alberta license plate which might indicate it was once registered here and not a recent import. The color scheme is similar to the old US Postal one so perhaps made its way up from Montana at some point. [ED: it looks generally similar to the Westcoaster Mailster, but there are some key differences] Obviously in rough shape it would still make an intriguing project. There was a note asking for offers as the owner didn’t want to haul it home. Hopefully it found a new home but I was able to resist.
The rear had a random assortment of parts in it. Not many seemed to be for the truck.
Steering bar with engine under that cover in the middle. There was a pedal on either side of the cover.
Any ideas on this one?
Could this be an early Mazda ? They started out with 3-whheeler utility vehicles.
Cushman Mailster? They were used by the USPS in the early 60s. I’ve heard of Vespa 3-wheel trucks used by USPS in the Western US about the same time.
I remember those Cushmans. When I was a little kid, we moved into a house in the suburbs of Fort Wayne, Indiana. All of the houses were built around 1959-60 and most like ours had a 16 foot wide driveway for the two car garage. The mailman in the Cushman could drive into our driveway, get out and walk onto the porch to deliver the mail, then do a U-turn in the drive to go back out to the street. He would zigzag down the street that way. It was probably not much later that the USPS decided to outlaw mailboxes on the front porches of new houses. I never saw those Cushmans anywhere else.
Looks a lot like a Daihatsu Midget, although the Midget has more of a raised bump where the headlight is. Maybe this is a Midget modified to take a US sealed beam headlight? Interior layout looks about right, assuming that hole in the top of the engine cover is for the shifter.
It could be anything though – I imagine there were all sorts of companies around the world putting out their own versions of the Ape/Midget trucklet.
Would be fun to drive one here in the US now, although I can imagine that these might be terrifying at speeds >20mph. I wonder whether these will take a superbike engine like the Reliants you can see on youtube.
looks like an auto rickshaw from india
It reminds me of an Indian Bajaj 3-wheeler. An Indian restaurant near us has one out front.
The front end looks the same as the front end of the motor rickshaw driven by Cato at the end of “Revenge of the Pink Panther” (to hilarious effect!).
Go to my website, http://www.kjjohnson.ca and in Motocarro World in the Daihatsu-Japan file, there are 54 photos, some show the center engine cover but more important, look at the handlebars in picture 16 which are the same – so – It’s a Daihatsu Midget, modified front end, maybe for Postal Service. Same front fender, doesn’t have the side mounted cannister lights of Indonesia but the one in the photo has a large central headlight. – Ken
Here are a few pics of a couple similar vehicles I snapped at a Nissan dealer in Denver last summer. One of them has a Lambretta badge. (Links are to a Dropbox space, so they’re safe.)
http://db.tt/6Xtu85kJ
http://db.tt/EOg0moDr
http://db.tt/NcOUooPt
Lorne: Yes, the green one is a Lambretta – Lambro from Italy – Pete has restored one for his shop in Ohio – http://www.kjjohnson.ca/piaggio/pictures/Motocarro%20Mundo/LAMBRETTA%20LAMBRO%20INNOCENTI%20ITALY/?directory=.¤tPic=302 – but the other is of interest to me. It’s a Piaggio Ape and with the rather different headlight mounted over the front fender it’s either from France where ACMA produced them with these headlights but probably it’s a USA Ape, the USA models had these type of headlights. I’d sure like to add that one to my collection, I restore Piaggio Ape’s – http://www.kjjohnson.ca/piaggio/pictures/VESPA%20APE%20USA/?directory=.¤tPic=11 – Ken
Ken, they were at Tynan’s Nissan in Denver/Aurora, Colorado. I have no idea if they were for sale. And the pics are older than I thought — 09/2010 rather than last summer.
My Ape friends in Italy always encourage me to get a ‘real’ Ape (chain drive). The ones I restore are early 1980’s. All I really want is a Pentaro so I can retire my Grumman. However, I’d bite on that Vespa Ape, there weren’t that many brought into USA, few survive. You can see in the Pentaro photo the headlight generally used by Piaggio “faro basso” (headlight on the fender)- Ken
OK – OK – found it. HINO Hustler, Japan, single headlight model later converted to twin headlights. Here’s a 1961. More photos in the HINO file on my website in ‘Motocarro World’ – kjjohnson.ca – when I get a minute up upload them. Good interior shot confirms. – Ken
While I’m at it here’s the interior photo – Ken
It’s a vespa ape pentera
Your picture modle is a HINO HumBee up to 1960, Later became Hustler