Mazda Suitcase Car

The story

In 1991, riding high on the Miata and a Le Mans win, Mazda invited its staff to dream up new forms of mobility in a company competition called Fantasyard. A team of 7 engineers from the manual-transmission department answered with a motorized suitcase. They found an oversized Samsonite hard case, loaded it with the bones of a small 3-wheeled motorbike, and arranged things so the front wheel, rear wheels and seat could be deployed in under a minute. A 34 cc two-stroke made 1.7 hp, good for about 22 mph.

As luggage it made no sense. At 32 kg (70 lb) it belonged in the hold, and no security line would wave through a tank of gasoline. That was never the point. The contraption became a media darling, earning extra copies for Europe and the United States, and at a 1991 exhibition it reportedly drew bigger crowds than the Le Mans-winning 787B beside it. The original was later wrecked and the European car has vanished, leaving the US example as the lone survivor of the most cheerful idea Mazda ever let its engineers build.