Chelsea Truck Company, a subsidiary of the renowned UK-based tuning firm Kahn Design, has taken a break from building obscenely expensive Land Rovers to unveil something unexpected: a retro-style, affordable one-seat roadster.
Called the Rivet, it is roughly bike-sized and rides on 17-inch wire-mesh wheels. The ground clearance looks quite enough for suburban roads, and ladder-frame construction should help keep things together on bumpy terrain.
Coming in at puny 2,286 mm (89.3 inches) long, the Rivet is so slim it has its semi-auto gearbox lever mounted on the right-hand side of the car, rather than the tunnel. Speaking of which, there is no tunnel to speak of: the engine under the hood commands all of 125cc (0.125 l) of displacement and churns out 7 horsepower (4.35 kilowatts). Tipping the scales at 230 kilos (507 pounds), the roadster is still capable of hitting 60 km/h (37 mph) in a straight line. It comes with modern disc brakes for proper deceleration, too.
Orders in the UK are available starting from £4,000. Chelsea’s U.S. office lists a similar single-seater for an asking price of $4,500. The origin of the car isn’t specified anywhere, so we suppose it could be an import.
