Tiny Car(s) to go with your Tiny Home

[eDJ_]

This has been kicking around in the back of my mind for awhile. What do you think of downsizing your car, pickup truck, or van to go with your Tiny Home. There could be more money saved by downsizing the transportation as well.

Replicar of a 50's BMW Isetta, now electric.

I'm thinking of a small car of some kind, or a Chevy S-10 or Ford Ranger etc for a pickup truck, and a small or mini van as well.

There are some newer replicas of 1950's cars back in the 50's foreign car boom.

One car come pickup mod I get a kick out of is an old Ford Festiva with a 3 cylinder engine and your choice of standard or automatic transmission. One guy I met with one of these said he got his dirt cheap as a tree limb had fallen on the back end of it and the owner didn't know what to do. He had seen a modified one that was rendered into a tiny pickup truck and wanted one for himself. So he made an offer that they accepted and he was off to his garage with it to begin the transformation. What he came up with looked much like this.

Motorized bicycles gas or electric are becoming big business now.

Bikes can get well over 100 mpg and the electric ones can get 40+ miles per charge.

Have you considered downsizing on your transportation too ?

 

[eDJ_]

If you aren't familiar with the Ford Festiva in it's original form here is one:

Small cars have been modified like this for some years. Here is a VW Bug as a pickup truck

or as a camper

 

[Deleted member 45]

I had a Ford Festiva. It was great. Compression ratii of 9.7, so the 1.3L acted like 4 angry squirrels. Got 40 to 50 mpg consistantly

 

[Deleted member 45]

This looks like useful toy. Basically a Willys jeep. Diesel motor, 5 speed. Do a few mods and its street legal and capable of 70+ mph. Might be capable of 30 mpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahindra_Roxor

 

[Sarah]

I had a red 1989 stick Ford Festiva. I think it was $8,900. That was such a good car. It was comfortable and got good gas mileage. I could get me, another adult, and two girls and all needed for a 3 day ice skating competition and food in that little car. I wish they still made such a good little basic car.
I did get air conditioning and a tape player for the luxuries.

My girls learned to drive in it, and it gave up the ghost at 157,000 miles.

 

[eDJ_]

Tiny Car/Tiny Home

These are around used if you look for them:

1968 Volkswagen Beetle Super Bugger Camper

If you have a small lot and build an open awning area to park in you could work on building out the awning shell as a tiny home while living out of the VW/RV.

 

[Alan]

Hah! That is a head turner. Too cute! I wonder how many are still driven around.

 

[eDJ_]

Some time back on another forum I advanced the idea of purchasing two small parcels of property
to build "camps" on. The idea being to drive north before the hot summer months set in at the southern camp used during the winter months when it would be cold at the northern camp. (called snow birding).
The northern camp would be left for the southern one in mid October to go south for the warmer weather. Thus RV'ers could say that they owned homes and weren't just homeless van nomads.

With a Van or "rig" (some kind of RV) the living quarters would be with in the vehicle so the camps would only need to be a open air roof structure as pictured below.

Should these open air structures be finished as Tiny Homes a person could simply own a car to travel back and forth thru the year and no longer need a RV of some kind. Thus owning two tiny homes.

In time the owner could choose one of the two to finish to live in on a more permanent basis.
Then the other parcel could be sold at a profit to help pay off the expenses left of the project.

The image below shows a higher roof structure (for a high top van) that could become a 1 1/2 story Tiny House (or attic space), a deck, and the framing to finish walls and floor. Since a builder would already be "under roof" it wouldn't take much to frame in the rest of the home. If the framework was 20X14 it would still be under 300 sq ft. (not counting what the second story would be used for)

 

[Alan]

That's a good idea. Less costly compared to buying RV and you have ground and roof you can call your own.

 

[Sarah]

I like the idea of the north and south home areas. And not needing to carry everything to each place.

 

[Alan]

I like the idea of the north and south home areas. And not needing to carry everything to each place.

Me too! I like that you're mobile at times of the year.