Forward-opening car doors; rearward opening -- curious

Made me look again...

Casimir Pulaski - Wikipedia

 

And my first thought was... Pulaski, Virginia - Wikipedia

 

Sure do!

This tool was named for Ed Pulaski, in Idaho. A few years ago I visited the site where he saved his crew:

Ed Pulaski - Wikipedia
Edward Pulaski Tunnel and Placer Creek Escape Route - Wikipedia

 

i was taught to play solitaire when lost. Someone will tell you to play the red 10 on the black jack, and you are found!

I was lost 17 times in CA in 1981, never worked.

 

.... And back to your original question, I well remember the car doors hinged from the rear. It was an unmentioned blessing for ladies (who always wore skirts in those days) as they could enter or exit with their modesty preserved. Of course, I was too young to realise it back then!

 

My 1959 SAAB 93B had suicide doors (hinged at the rear, opening to the front) and a hood hinged at the front. The SAAB was one of the first front-wheel drive cars, and The arrangement of things behind the front grill was quite unique: first the distributor cap and engine, then the fan (mounted on a shaft with the alternator and water pump, IIRC) and finally the radiator (located right in front of the fire wall with holes to vent the air downwards) . The suicide doors did not latch well, and if they came open at speed the leverage would tend to rip the door off rather than push it closed--I installed seat belts to give myself a stable base to pull the door shut against the air pressure.
But The real problem with the car was the distributor location up in front as it was pelted by rain at any speed and would tend to short out.
The starter solenoid also did not work occasionally and I had to Hotwire the battery directly to the starter motor with a thick cable to get it started. But I had to stand beside the engine compartment to do that, and one time the car happened to be in first gear when I hotwired it---the engine did indeed start and the car thereupon started moving at an idle speed. It ran over my foot, across the parking lot, and fetched up against a tree, but the speed was low enough that no harm was done.

 

SAAB (Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget), being a bunch of folks that built airplanes for a living, were very creative when it came to designing cars.

Some of their ideas were really great. They were pretty good at building aerodynamic cars, although many called them ugly.

I liked the placement and design of the fuse box in the 900S. It was under the hood, on the driver's side of the engine compartment. The fuses were easy to see, clearly labeled regarding purpose, and spares were provided, should they be needed.

I also liked the way the hood rolled over the front of the car. It was nicely counterweighted so it stayed put.

The sun roof was an integral part of the roof, not just a piece of glass. When you shut it, it had as solid a sound as when you closed one of the doors.

The placement of the starter - on the floor, between the front seats - left a lot to be desired. If you needed a new starter motor, the engine and transmission had to be removed to get to it. Truly pessimal. The placement of the trans pan, right under the front bumper, was pretty bogus, too.

What's left of SAAB is a company called NEVS (New Electric Vehicles Sweden).

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Strange, I used to drool over that car. Not sure I even had a driver's licence but it was so futuristic in my eyes. But did it not have a 2 stroke engine?

 

Some of the earlier Saabs had a 2-stroke from what I remember, but I also remember seeing a program on UK television (around the mid 1970s) where they were investigating the easiest cars to break into and hot-wire. There was an "expert" car thief on the programme, and he stated that without exception the most difficult car to steal was the Saab. The only way you'd make off with a Saab was by using a flat-bed truck! Also, I seem to remember the ignition switch on my friend Rob's Saab being located on the floor between the front seats!

 

Yes. Three cylinder 2-stroke , in-line, aligned fore and aft, and water cooled. My model was before they I installed an automatic oil-gasoline mixer, and I had to manually add 8 ounces of 2-stroke oil to the trap at the top of the gasoline inlet tube BEFORE adding 8 gallons of fuel. But that was in the day of full-service gas stations , so the fueling sequence was:
1. Drive up to pump.
2. Open suicide door and leap out waving arms wildly to prevent the attendant from automatically fueling the car.
3. OPen gas cap, measure 8 ounces of oil, and pour that amount into the fuel line trap while the attendant waits impatiently.
4. Tell attendant to insert exactly 8 gallons of fuel--no more, no less, and then watch the attendant with an eagle eye to ensure accuracy.
5. Put on gas cap, pay attendant, and drive off. (The attendant always seemed glad that we were leaving, somehow.)
Like 2-stoke motorcycles , those engines would seize up, and mine had been seized and then disassembled and rebuilt. Unfortunately, the seals between the cylinders were not completely correct, so cylinder 1 ran too rich while cylinder 2 ran too lean, and cylinder 3 was normal. We coped with that by using a hotter plug with an aviation-style of tip in cylinder 1, a cold range of plug for cylinder 2, and a normal plug for cylinder 3. The plugs were a larger, non-standard size rumored to be the same as a John Deere tractor , but I know that hot plug was an aviation type as it had 3 or 4 contacts around the edges of the center electrode to help keep firing even as it was fouling.
The car hat a "free-wheeling" feature that you could just back off the engine to an idle and the car would coast (that helped prevent the engine from seizing). However, it was also, in fact, far more effectively streamlined than the other cars of that era, and thus I could coast down-mountain at over 70 mph in the Ozark mountains of Missouri and pass semis with the engine almost silent as it was turning over at an idle. We called it"That Free Wheeling Feeling"! It also was front-wheel drive and surprisingly good in the snow for being such a light curb weight. But unique it certainly was.

 

Fuzzy1@24 provided links related to Pulaski/Idaho/1910. Putting one's mind into that situation is quite another, deeper thing.