The New Sedanca – Extra Pt 3

Work on the 1929 Dodge Limousine’s little sister is progressing slowly but still progressing. At the moment we are fitting all the interior door bits. For example, all the ‘Bailey channel’ has to be measured, cut to size and fitted to the new 1927 Dodge doors. As well as this the door locks have to be fitted and made operational. So, while this work is being done, I thought I’d take the time to share another little project we have been ‘playing’ with.

Of course it is mechanical, not a vintage Dodge but just as much, if not more fun. We decided to design and build some “off road karts” after having seen what was commercially available at the time. If I was to trust the lives of family and friends in the karts, I wanted to make sure that, firstly, they were strong and secondly that they were very safe to drive. After playing with a few concepts, a prototype was duly built.

After much “testing” (IE: thrashing the ‘pants’ off it in all weather with all sorts of drivers) we decided to build a few with very little change to the original concept. Six karts were duly manufactured complete with Briggs and Stratton engines and Comet Torquavertors. The “MUDLARX Tiger Kat” had materialized. After some negotiation, the Geelong Motor Sports Complex allowed us to lease a small unused portion of their facility and so “Mark 1 Fun Karts” was born. The ‘Mark 1’ was a play on words as my younger brother Mark ran the operation on the weekends while I concentrated on the wedding cars.

Even Our 81 year old mother got into the act, having to try out the seating and handling before she would give them the “thumbs up”.

Of course, you just can’t leave it there. Naturally as you drive these things, ideas form. Improvements and developments on the theme arise. One such development was the “MUDLARX Fat Kat” which was a 2 seater version of the Tiger Kat. The frame was virtually identical except that we extended the floorpan out to the full width of the wheel base. Surprisingly, the engine and torquavertor were strong enough to give and enjoyable ride but ‘Bigger’ and ‘More Powerful’ was constantly on our minds.

Enter the “MUDLARX Roc Kat”. We still had the frame of the original ‘concept machine’ so it was time for a play. My friend Bill had a motor out of a two cylinder Subaru under his bench so after a few measurements and scrounging of materials, it was duly grafted into the rear of the kart. With that sort of ‘Grunt’ we also needed good handling as well as good stopping power. The handling came by giving the kart four wheel independent suspension, the rear courtesy of Mazda Capella Macpherson Struts and the front by incorporating Toyota Corolla tie rod ends into a double wishbone arrangement. The braking came from fitting the Subaru’s disc brakes to the rear wheels.

First time out, hit the throttle and the front wheels came off the ground as we ‘took off’.

A softer front suspension sorted that out but if you accelerated into a right hand corner, the front right hand wheel lifted off the ground and similarly throwing it into a left hand drift.

“But boy was it fun.”