Street legal bumper cars at S.D. auto show

Описание: Mark Maynard, U-T AUTOMOTIVE EDITOR 2012 san diego international auto show
Tom Wright is a reluctant celebrity.
His collection of street legal bumper cars stops traffic, turns heads and sends the curious to sleuth out the story behind these hand-fabricated, gasoline-powered, one-seat speedsters. But Wright shuns publicity and has no blueprints to share. As an artist with a vivid imagination, the plans are all in his head.
He got started about 15 years ago converting these nostalgic bumper cars that were popular in amusement parks from the 1930s to 1950s. He now has nine, all with powerful motorcycle engines, but they retain the old power poles behind the seat to honor their once-electric history.
Pictures of the cars are all over the Internet, despite Wright's attempt at anonymity. "The cars are the stars," he said. "Not me." Four of his cars were just at the Essen, Germany, auto show. Last year, all nine went to the Charlotte Motor Speedway for a special NASCAR display.
And next week, Wright will debut his newest creation, a military tribute, at the San Diego International Auto Show. There will be five cars on view (near the U-T space in the center of the main floor), including the 1953 U.S. Army Staff car, with the plate "ARMYHQ." It is complete with olive-drab paint, a miniature machine gun on the hood, ammo cans at the back, a pilot's survival knife and more.
Wright, 63, a semi-retired businessman who has residences in Southern California and Arizona, is a collector of many vintage wheeled artifacts.
"I'm on my sixth midlife crisis," he said. In the mid-1980s, he was into old Fords and completely restored five cars to bone-stock original condition -- the way Henry built them, he said. He still has three of them in his 3,000-square-foot garage, including a red and white 1953 convertible. He also collected old bicycles for a while. And he's a Harley guy.
For the first conversion, he tried a Honda 125cc engine, "but it just didn't have enough power and never went more than 25 mph," he said. "It just wasn't as fun as it could be." So then he stuffed a Harley-Davidson 1200cc engine under the floor board. It worked, but it also vibrated the little steel-bodied car to pieces, cracking windshield frames, loosening bolts and worse.
He then switched to 500cc and 750cc, two- and four-cylinder Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle engines with six-speed manual transmissions (but no reverse). The 500cc engines are sweet, but the 750s can be cranky, he said. The bigger engine is about 2.5 inches away from the road surface. The cars have headlights, taillights and rearview mirrors. And with a four-gallon fuel tank and 44 mpg, "you get tired of driving before you run out of gas," he said