"Back in the early 1990s, Mazda built a suitcase car, a portable three-wheeled vehicle for airports that fits inside hard-shell luggage. A project coming from an internal contest called Fantasyard between 1989 and 1991, the concept automobile was built by seven of the company's engineers from their manual transmission testing and research unit. They wanted a vehicle to move around airports faster, so the team bought a pocket bike and the largest hard-shell Samsonite suitcase, size 57 cm by 75 cm."
"They used parts from the pocket bike, including its 33.6 cc two-stroke engine that produces 1.7 PS. The handlebars went inside the suitcase, the rear wheels attached to the outside of the case, and the front wheel came through a removable hatch in the front. Assembling the portable Mazda suitcase car could take around a minute. Workers turned the front wheel to an upright position through the removable section, and they inserted the rear wheels."
"The concept automobile shared traits with earlier Mazda vehicles because it had three wheels, like the Mazda-Go from 1931, which was a motor rickshaw sold in Japan. Then, there's the low center of gravity, which was found in the previous MX-5 roadster. So far, the portable Mazda suitcase car has never made it to production. all images courtesy of Mazda UK"
Mazda engineers created a portable three-wheeled suitcase car in the early 1990s during an internal Fantasyard contest to improve airport mobility. Seven engineers repurposed a 33.6 cc two-stroke pocket bike engine (1.7 PS) and fitted handlebars inside a hard-shell Samsonite case, with rear wheels mounted externally and a front wheel through a removable hatch. Assembly took about a minute, producing a 32 kg vehicle with a 30 km/h top speed. The design echoed Mazda-Go three-wheel layout and MX-5 low center of gravity. Two examples were built and the project never entered production.
Read at designboom | architecture & design magazine
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