Tuesday, April 22, 2008

What an unusual one-seater car - The Sparrow

Its compact size and unique. This tiny wonder has no boot space, a length of less than two metres and only has enough room for one person. This is called Corbin Sparrow and there's only 1 registered in Singapore.

The Corbin Sparrow is a single-passenger, three-wheeled, battery electric vehicle designed specifically for commuting and city driving. It was produced by Corbin Motors.

The Sparrow is powered by a 20 kW (continuous) 156-volt DC or 3-phase AC electric motor and has a range of 32 to 64 km and a top speed of 112 km/h. Fuel efficiency is approximately 130 W·h/km which is equivalent to 162 mpg using the DOE conversion.

Two models were produced: the original "jelly bean" model and then a hatchback model, which was nicknamed "pizza butt" because it was designed for use by Domino's Pizza. The vehicles are so eye-catching that Hollywood star Mike Myers featured a group of them in the movie Austin Powers in Goldmember.

CorbinMotors filed Chapter 7 Bankrupcy way back in 1999 and only a total of only 285 Corbin Sparrows were manufactured. Very few are actually out driving around and we have one in Singapore!

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