The MK I

The story of Max Hyde Motors and the MKI started back in 1998 when Max Hyde was sixteen and still at school. From a young age he has always been interested in anything mechanical, the more unusual the better, and for some time had been messing about with motorbikes. He often thought about building a motorbike-style trike until one day a mate told him about a three-wheeled 2CV kit car that belonged to a friend. Naturally he was extremely interested in this so called three wheeler and started to look into the possibilities of buying such a kit, but when you're sixteen and doing your GCSEs you don’t have the time or money for such things.

A few months later he left school and started a mechanical engineering course at college, luckily part of the course was to design and build something to demonstrate his engineering ability, so of course he said “can I build a three-wheeled 2CV?”. Once the laughter had died down they realised he wasn’t joking and the concept of the MKI was born and within weeks he was the proud owner of a 1987 green and white 2CV, so rusty that it was bent in the middle and had a hole in the floor!

He knew very little about cars, least of all 2CVs which aren’t like any other car anyway. He couldn’t weld, panel beat, or even drive, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. He started by building a simple ladder chassis onto which the engine and suspension could be mounted, and once he had a rolling chassis he fitted the seats, then the steering wheel, the pedals and so on until everything was in the correct place just for him. When these parts were fitted he then formed a body around it, he had a basic shape in mind that he wanted to create and had on the wall a picture of a Sandford, a 1930's three wheeler that has a beautifully sweeping all-aluminium body.

Gradually over the next two years the car came together and once the car was finished the next big challenge had to be overcome, moving the car from it's home in the garden, through a side passage way only three feet wide, and away to a friend's garage. Always thinking ahead he had deliberately designed the car to be only two and a half feet high, so when dismantled he and a few friends were able to tip the car on its side, put it on his old skateboard and wheeled it out!

It took only a few weeks to re-assemble the car and take it for its MOT. To his surprise it actually passed and he soon had the car re-registered from a Citroen 2CV to a Max Hyde Motors MKI. Now it was time to drive it! A 2CV engine may only produce 29bhp as standard, but with a lightweight body that can equal 100bhp per ton. It could beat most cars off the line and would easily go fast enough for the speedo to go off the scale, and he even perfected the art of spinning the wheels in first, second and third gear whilst pulling away.

These pictures were taken at the Brooklands Museum on their test hill, despite having a 1 in 4 incline the MKI sped up without hesitation.

The MKI was on the road for three years and covered about 1500 miles in that time. Max found it a real pleasure to drive a car he had made with his own hands in a shed at the bottom of the garden and the skills and knowledge he obtained in the process were immense. But during the time the MKI was on the road he had designed and built a new car, the MKII, and the MKI had to be dismantled in order to make space for it.

However the spirit of the MKI lives on, he still has all of the mechanical components and has designed a new chassis and body and built this scale model, so at some point in the future the MKI will be born again.

© COPYRIGHT 2006 - MAX HYDE MOTORS