This is a new Unicar Corp Unisport circa 1973. I really don't know a lot about it. I know a small SoCal company called the Unicar Corp lasted 2-3 years in the early 70s making these vehicles. That alone is impressive, very few small car co's complete as much as a single vehicle. I've heard that the body was designed by Bruce Meyers, the creator of the classic Meyer's Manx dune buggy, and I heard they even sold a couple of these to NASA.
This vehicle is unique. The idea was in about 2 hours you could take your Honda CB450-750, remove the front forks, and attach the rest to the Unisport 2-person tandem tub with 2 wheels up front. Steering was by steering wheel, and buttons on the steering wheel controlled 2 electric motors up front, one pushing and one pulling on the tilting parallelogram front suspension - in other words, you could make the 3-wheeled vehicle lean into turns.
Why this blog? As a fan of small 3-wheel vehicles, especially tilters, I've seen the same small collection of old Unisport pictures here and there for years, including one very small and fuzzy pic of a Unisport mid-lean, but very little info. Then out of the blue, someone posted a Unisport for sale on craigslist.org. It's been sitting under a tarp in Texas for the last couple decades, it's rusty (but not pitted), the tech is 37 years old. The state-of-the-art-1970s disc brakes are 1/2" solid steel. I bought it.
This blog is to document the restoration. This is a partial restore - the goal is to get the vehicle back on the road with minimal work (ha ha), just adequately powered by a 04' Suzuki Burgman 400 donor that I have stripped for another project. Identify, test, remove, clean/replace/rebuild, put back together, drive. And I'm hoping if you're reading this blog you'll come back & help w/ triage in future posts, reverse engineering the tilting system should be fun.
What happens when you push the tilt buttons? Can I restore the old tech as-is? Can I resist updating everything before I even drive it (1/2" X 9" solid steel discs as part of the unsprung mass on a light weight vehicle? Practically 4-decade old microcontrollers w/ dusty piles of goo under them? C'mon!)? I don't know what'll happen, I just know the dormant headlights of my Unisport are crusted with old dead bugs. Somebody was tearing down the road in this thing, probably a big smile on their face, teeth bug-free behind a glass windshield, looking for more curves ahead.
I am glad to see that you took a moment to let me know of your blog. Yes, I will be getting a good collection of information to you. Soon. However, we are and have been overloaded with the typical dance of high school graduation as the last daughter departs next year for university. My Aermacchi 350, the Laverda, and the Unisport are fallow for the time being. As it is, our Pacific Northwest coast storms have also kept all of us from venturing out to play, work, or laze about.
ReplyDeleteLet me say from the start, if I may, that the Burgman engine will not be quit enough. That is not only in the search for adequate power to move the extremely heavy kit away from a standing start, but will also show some teeth when you need to address the charging of the two batteries that are required to move both linear actuators to lean the machine and to then return the machine once more to an upright position. The wiring of the tilt charging methodology required that a wire be connected to the motorcycle's alternator. I will send you the simple schematic for the wiring as soon as feasible. Patience, my friend, patience.
EarlWizard