Japan is a place I need to visit at some point in my life. It's full of excellent food, wild electronics, beautiful scenery, supposedly amazing roads, and some of the most interesting creations outside of DARPA.
There are also supposedly Godzillas and Gundams running around, so that's a plus.
But Japan is also the birthplace of some of the most interesting pieces of machinery on the planet, as some of the most scratch-your-head. Whether that's Honda's exoskeleton legs or MotoCompacto Kawasaki's superbike-powered drone, or Hello Kitty everything, there's always something cool happening in the world of machines.
However, sometimes I think things get lost in translation, as while this Mazda concept that my old friends at The Drive dug up is interesting, and labeled as a "Suitcase Car", it's absolutely a motorcycle. Or, at the very least, a trike.
Mazda's Suitcase Car was something the automaker developed in the early 1990s, and like other forms of last-mile transportation we've seen from auto manufacturers, they have their genesis in solving a problem many have with cars: they only get you so far. And with parking becoming increasingly hard to come by near your final destination in big cities, last-mile transportation like Honda's original MotoCompo or any of the e-scooters we have today, everyone was looking for a solution to help the average person get around town.
Enter Mazda's Suitcase Car.
According to the outlet, the Suitcase Car was built within a 30x22 Samsonite suitcase with a 34cc two-stroke engine. Noice. It made a whopping 1.5 horsepower which allowed it to hit 20 mph, which is probably enough for suitcase-based transportation. And, unlike a car, the Suitcase Car came with only three-wheels. That, in combination with its small displacement two-stroke engine, as as handlebar controls, leads me to my consternation with Mazda's nomenclature because, in my opinion, what I just described is a motorcycle.
The whole thing weighed in at 70 pounds, and could be wheeled just like a normal Samsonite roller bag. But, obviously, didn't catch on and I don't think Mazda made more than the original concept. I mean, who could've guessed a screaming 34cc two-stroke "car" wouldn't catch on getting you to and from your car or through the bustling city centers of Tokyo or New York?
Imagine the noise and chaos if these had? I do have one question for Mazda, though. If you ever find the Suitcase Car, or know where the original concept is, can I try it out?
