There was a sale at the bookstore today. Obviously, therefore, I went to the bookstore.
And, on my way out….
Hooked a quick left into a convenient parking lot and grabbed a camera, because the last one of these I saw was in a museum in another state probably thirty-odd years ago.
And here’s one parked in a shopping center.
For those of you who are wondering (which is probably most if not all) this is a late-50s, early 60s Messerschmitt KR200 Kabinenroller. It’s mostly motorcycle underneath, 200 cc engine, tricycle wheels, chain drive, seats two in tandem, and it IS a motorcycle so you’d best be friends. GOOD friends. Mechanically somewhat quirky and I don’t know that I’d have the cojones to drive one around H-town.
It’s a pretty odd little duck, but total production was over 80 thousand of the things so it’s not THAT rare. It’s basically a cute little town buggy… Top speed is around 55, so you wouldn’t really want to take it out on a Houston freeway, but for little shopping trips or running out to the cafe or the bistro…
I was hoping the owner would come back so I could get more information, but no such luck. I’m just kind of glad to see it out being driven. World needs more things like this…
05/28/13 11:00 Update
I am more or less reliably informed that this is NOT an authentic KR200. It’s a replica with a Honda 250 engine and a fiberglass body. As I know enough about the vehicles to recognize what it was but not enough to know an original from a copy, and as I do know people crazy enough to have built a copy*, I’m going along with the update.
All the information about the KR above is correct; it’s just that this is by report NOT an original version.
*Look, I have friends who built a trebouchet big enough to fling refrigerators and volkswagen beetles, okay? And I know a guy who built a plastic-body copy of a LeMans Porsche on a VW chassis – and put a real turbo Porsche engine in it. It’d do close to 200 mph… with volkswagen steering, suspension, and brakes!
I have some SERIOUSLY weird and potentially insane friends who do strange things for reasons nobody else really understands…