{"id":6150,"date":"2015-09-09T07:08:17","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T21:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/?p=6150"},"modified":"2020-06-20T01:03:02","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T15:03:02","slug":"a-car-that-turns-head-for-the-wrong-reasons-the-reliant-robin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/history\/a-car-that-turns-head-for-the-wrong-reasons-the-reliant-robin\/","title":{"rendered":"A Car That Turns Head For The Wrong Reasons: The Reliant Robin"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"And<\/a>

And on top of the other weirdness, the bonnet opens backwards.<\/p><\/div>\n

There are some cars that turn heads for the right reasons. You look at them and think \u201cWow!\u201d I remember nearly going off the road the first time I saw a vehicle that I loved the styling of (it was a 2000 model Ford Falcon <\/a>XR6, by the way \u2013 although I mistook it for a Jaguar at first glance).\u00a0 Others are a pure dream to drive and seem to have been created by designers who really think about what people need and want (something I\u2019ve experienced with the Volvo and the Saab I\u2019ve owned over the years \u2013 bravo, Sweden!).<\/p>\n

Others turn heads for the wrong reasons. They leave you wondering what on earth the design team was thinking. You wonder how on earth the cars in question got off the drawing board, let alone the sales yard. One car in particular stands out as a real head-turner (for the wrong reasons) and head-scratcher: the Reliant Robin.<\/p>\n

\"redrobin\"<\/a>If you\u2019ve seen a Mr Bean episode, you\u2019ve probably seen a Reliant Robin. It\u2019s the three-wheeled blue thing that perpetually gets shunted out of the way by Bean\u2019s beloved yellow Mini <\/a>.\u00a0 This vehicle wasn\u2019t, as I once thought back in my teen years, specially created by the producers of the Mr Bean series as a joke. It is for real. A design team really did sit down and a car company really did make a car with three wheels. What\u2019s more, it sold.\u00a0 Apparently, the \u201cPlastic Pig\u201d, as it came to be called, is the second-most popular fibreglass vehicle. It also went through three facelifts (all of which kept the three wheels) and was produced up until 2001.<\/p>\n

The idea behind the Reliant Robin was frugality and innovation.\u00a0 It was developed back in the 1970s during the oil crisis, so cars with small engines were highly desirable (some things don\u2019t change). This had the benefit of bringing the Mini and the Fiat 500 <\/a>to public attention but it also produced some right horrors. As well as the Reliant Robin, another mid-1970s horror was the Sebring-Vanguard CitiCar, an electric vehicle (yep, things haven\u2019t changed) that was great in the fuel consumption department but looked singularly hideous and had windows that zipped up.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Sebring Citicar.<\/p><\/div>\n

But why, oh why did they make it with just three wheels?\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t make for better aerodynamics to increase the fuel economy. It certainly doesn\u2019t make for better handling. Out of all the three-wheeled car designs (the Reliant Robin isn\u2019t the only one in existence), the delta layout (one wheel at the front, two at the back) is the least stable and is prone to rolling when braking\u00a0\u00a0 The \u201ctadpole\u201d layout \u2013 one at the back, two at the front, as seen in the BMW Isetta \u2013 is somewhat more stable.<\/p>\n

The reason why they made it with three wheels was to make it more accessible: because of the engine size and because it had less than four wheels, it was classed as a motorbike for licensing and registration purposes. If you were a miner working in the north of England who needed to get to work cheaply but didn\u2019t want to freeze your buttocks off on a motorbike, and you didn\u2019t want to pay a packet for car registration, something like the Reliant Robin kind of made sense, especially as you could fit the family in the back, like you would with any three-door hatchback.<\/p>\n

Specifications-wise, the Reliant Robin achieved its aim of good fuel economy. The 1970s model\u2019s teeny little 750 cc engine (with 29.5 kW of power and 63 Nm of torque and a 0\u2013100 km\/h time of 17 seconds, depending on who you ask) could do 70 miles per gallon (that\u2019s 4 L\/100 km).\u00a0 The top speed of the Robin was 136 km\/h, although given its performance when braking and cornering, you probably wouldn\u2019t want to flog the little thing that hard. Especially as the body was made of fibreglass to keep the weight and fuel consumption down. \u00a0Needless to say, the Reliant Robin has a rear-wheel-drive powertrain.<\/p>\n

The Robin is notoriously unstable, with a tendency to lift rear wheels off the ground during hard braking or cornering. This is probably the main reason why it ended up being the patsy in the Mr Bean episodes: it was easy to roll, push, tip and otherwise abuse. Top Gear<\/i> episodes have also taken the mickey out of the Robin. And the three-wheel design makes it look just plain weird.<\/p>\n