It’s possible some of you may remember back in 2016 when I wrote about this strange beast, the six-wheeled, 18 horsepower experimental hybrid car built by a company you likely know best from lawn mower engines. When I first wrote that, I had no idea if the car still survived. Late last year, though, I remembered the car and did some digging that ended up with it being refurbished and handed over to Jay Leno to take for a spin.
See, I have a little side gig where I do a bit of producing work for Jay Leno’s Garage, and we needed something weird and interesting for Jay to drive. I remembered this oddball, and reached out to Briggs and Stratton.
Amazingly, they still had the car! It hadn’t really been out of their museum in 30 years, but they were incredibly willing to get it running again and make it available to drive.
They sent me pictures of the car, and it looked great, but that’s because it’s been a museum piece for decades. It hadn’t been driven or even started in forever, so when I reached out back in September, I really wasn’t sure if this would even happen.
Incredibly, it doesn’t seem like they had to do all that much, to the credit of the original builders of this thing way back in 1980. New batteries, a bit of an overhaul to that air-cooled flat twin, and some careful, gradual application of electricity, and the thing was good to go!
Here, watch it in action:
I’m really excited to see this ahead-of-its-time, slow-but-sleek weirdo back on the road! The engineer is so earnest and knowledgable it’s great to see him explaining how the thing works to Jay.
I’m just excited I had some small part in resurrecting the yellow hexapod. There’s more good Leno stuff coming this season, so I’ll keep you updated. One less thing on your plate.
You just relax.