Converted Cars

Some time ago I saw an article in the paper where an organization of some type was collecting older cars and stripping them to the frame and shortening the frame and converting them into farm tractors (full size ) which they were shipping to India to help the farmers there modernize somewhat. Something like that could be done with electric. I think they put 2 stick transmissions in series so they could get the lower geardown needed on tractors for heavy pulling. When I lived on the farm we used old car frames to make into flatbed hay wagons when we went from making loose hay with horse power to making baled hay. They worked well. Some were made into grain wagons with grain boxes to haul oats, wheat. or corn or whatever. It wouldn't take much to make them into covered wagons of a sort suitable to camp out in, travel in, etc.

I think about 30 years ago a fellow took a junked van of the box shaped type with the engine under the front seat, and removed the engine and other non-essential parts including the front windshield, where he installed a piece of plywood with a slot maybe 6 inches high and a foot or so wide. He converted the front wheels to a trailer tongue setup and rigged it to be horse drawn. He had a set up where the wheels ran a car alternator to charge a set of batteries to run lights and the radio, etc. I guess it was set up like a camper on the inside, but I never saw that much detail on the vehicle. I mostly saw clips on the TV news and articles in Popular Science. My guess is he took out the transmission and left the drive shaft where he probably mounted a large V belt pulley and belted it to the alternator to power it and gear up when the wheels turned. This wasn't a new idea then even. I’ve seen WW1 news clips of a horse drawn 1937 Packard sedan used as a taxi, the engine and the front fenders were removed, and maybe the windshield removed too. The driver sat on the roof above the windshield. That was in north Africa.

Offered by Darrell.