Here is a scan from a magazine that had an article on the King Midget car. There is some information on the scanned page but it is blurry and difficult to read. It is not listed on the International King Midget Owners website. It is also not at the Midget Motors site. I have a feeling that if King Midgets were made after the Mark Three - perhaps the above would have been the Mark Four? - it would have been made?
There is some history of the King Midget car at the history section of the King Midget Car Club.
The idea of this blog is to see if one could take the parts - mostly everything from a Smart Fortwo - and use them to make a kit car that looks like the Mark Four (a name I gave it since I am unable to read the blurry text part of the scanned image). It would obviously be bigger than the original King Midget which were really small cars. If it was just a matter of changing panels and slight frame adjustments, it could be safe for road use; since the Smart Fortwo is safe for road use.
Here is the outline for the Smart Fortwo. It is similar to the King Midget in that they are both rear wheel rear engine vehicles. The difference is that the Fortwo has an water cooled engine as opposed to the air cooled one of the KM. The Smart has a three cylinder engine as opposed to the one cylinder the KM has. I believe if one could make a Fortwo looking like a Mark 4, it would be bigger, more comfortable, be safer, and be more highway capable than the Mark 4 (assuming it was ever made and was not limited to just concept drawings). I wonder how many would prefer it - the Smart KM4 (name of the Smart King Midget hybrid design) over the Fortwo since it would be longer, which some would associate with safer.
I have a feeling that Smart would not be interested in making such a vehicle because they have all those cool concepts that would have increased the appeal of the Smart brand (since they are usually bigger than the Fortwo) but have not gone beyond the concept cars.
I wonder how many micro cars with rear engine / rear wheel drive could be 'updated' (taking a Smart Fortwo and changing it to look like the older rear wheel / rear engine micro car but making it bigger and safer than the original)? I will post some of these in this blog in the future. It would be similar - in my opinion - to what Fiat did with the newer 500 and what Mini did with the newer Cooper.
A lot of my ideas will never get off the sketchpad but it is neat to imagine what could be. If I had a lot of resources, they might become reality. Until then, I just like to design and think of the possibilities.
much improved personal web site.
some of my art at my store at the Cafe Press site.
It still needs better photos but most pretty good.
