Star Trike at the 1982 San Diego Comic Con
Slippery Brick spotted this little nerd trike, and it's a beaut. As seen at the 1982 San Diego Comic Con, it's some sort of Roddenberry mod job, mashing the NCC-1701 up with a three wheeled ATV. Instead of a serial number, the saucer section declares it the "Star Trike." I love it. The perfect thing to maneuver your boneless, gastropoidal frame around the convention center. I want one to drive wildly around my local supermarket, madly slashing at boxes of Apple Jacks and tumbling them off the top shelves with my reaching broom.
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That appears to have the rear engine/transmission/suspension from a VW Beetle, along with the front fork from some Japanese bike.
So that thing is motorcycle trike sized, not mobility trike sized.
The only thing scarier than a Star Trike? Another Star Trike:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcLete2X4vc
Can't be entirely certain, but they look like different vehicles. . .
I'm expecting to see an increasing number of mobility carts and motorized wheelchairs creatively tricked out, as the boomer SF fans are becoming old enough to need them.
I swear the guy who owned that trike used to drive it around Ocean Beach at christmas time wearing a Santa suit. The trike had christmas lights around the hull.
I saw it cruising down Newport Ave in Ocean Beach two weeks ago. Looks like it's been in a few battles since this picture was taken.
>>I'm expecting to see an increasing number of mobility carts and motorized wheelchairs creatively tricked out, as the boomer SF fans are becoming old enough to need them.
How about an SF-themed old folks' home -- I mean "assisted living facility"? Could be a huge industry.
Cellphones for seniors today have names like Jitterbug because they're familiar terms to that generation. I can see a senior cellphone in another decade or so called "The Communicator."
most trikes are a the back end of a Beetle.
#6/Mellownonk, re "an SF-themed old folks' home" -- See Tom Smith's musical take on that concept, http://www.tomsmithonline.com/lyrics/convalescence.htm
(Tom recently injured himself, which is cutting into his ability to go out and perform. If you've been considering buying one or more of his recordings, or dropping some cash in the virtual guitar case, this would be a good time.)
The real issue: does the rider have to manually reconfigure the deflector?
What I remember most about that show is that they always had to reconfigure the deflector. Why didn't the damn thing come configured from the factory? What, did it run Linux or something?
THe owner was professor at a college here in SD ( i took a business english class from him). He is a magician as well as a freqent mayor candidate for san diego
Gilmoid anonymous here again.
How do you steer it? Do you have to turn the saucer section by hand like a big ship's wheel?
#2/BILL_OWENS:
It looks like the second one is a rebuild of the first, destroyed in a fire.
http://www.star-trike.com
I too would like to know how it steers. Does it just turn by pure awesome?
My father was one of the original Star Trek cast members, and I often attended cons with him as a kid. When I saw this trike pull up at one, I was flabbergasted. Like a child raised by wolves, nerds are my people, and this was the baddest badge of nerd pride I had yet seen.
Coincidentally, I was just talking about this very trike to someone the other day, having just seen an old man tearing down the road on a far less scifi-inspired trike.
Thanks for posting.
Credit for shot goes to Alan Light.
Full set below:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alan-light/sets/72157601430944410/