What would you get if you created an illegitimate child of a Mercedes G-Wagon and a Brinks armored truck (and maybe if the Mercedes chain smoked during pregnancy)? I guess you could end up with something like the weird looking electric car that has earned the dubious honor of being named Alibaba's Awesomely Weird Electric Car of the Week!
I'm not sure if this is an armored golf cart, so I'm not going to invite any unnecessary potshots while driving through your hood, but I'm at a loss for how else to explain it.
It is by no means a “real” car, as evidenced by its $6,999 price tag and 30 km/h (18 mph) top speed. If you ask me though, that speed goes in the 'benefits' column. When you're driving something that looks this good, you want to go slow enough to give people a good, long look.
A car like this is built to send a statement. Unfortunately, I think this statement could be, “I wanted a Jeep but my partner wanted to remodel the kitchen.”
So if it's not a real car, what is it?
Measuring a whopping 306 cm long (a whole half inch over 10 feet), this four-seat mini-SUV is just under the G-Wagon and the “Oh, gee” wagon. It can carry up to 370 kg (815 lb) of passengers or cargo, but there's no telling how much space to accommodate the already challenging top speed.
Safety may also be a passing concern. It doesn't have seatbelts, but the tires look like they almost overlap front and rear, so at least it has some nice shock absorbing bumpers built into the design.
The ad claims a range of up to 80 km (50 miles) per charge, which seems like more miles than anyone needs for something like this.
There's no word on the battery technology, which means I'm guessing it's old lead acid tech features or there's a frunk full of lemons and a bunch of loose wires running through the firewall.
I'm glad to see that the roof rack is at least equipped with enough LED lights to make an airport runway jealous, should I ever find myself stranded in the wild in my backyard after dark. And that roof rack looks very heavy, although the wagon is much longer than it is wide, hard turns with a very full roof should be avoided.
As much as I love this thing, I don't think I'll be pulling out my credit card anytime soon.
Don't get me wrong, I've bought a lot of bad ideas from Alibaba before. But since my $2,000 electric truck ended up costing me about 4 times that time when it arrived in the US, I'm worried about what the $6,999 Mini-MegaOverlander's final price will be.
I don't recommend anyone to try to buy this cute little TinyTrailblazer, and I don't vouch for the seller, who I found by chance while scrolling through Alibaba to reverse engineer the original. Keep in mind that this is all part of a tongue-in-cheek column I'm writing, delving deep into Alibaba's weird and funny collection of amazing electric cars.
But hey, if someone goes that route, it wouldn't be the first time that my advice is ignored and some great photos arrive in the inbox a few months later. Just say I didn't warn you when it turns out some Nigerian prince has your last paycheck and you're up a creek with no MicroMudder to bail you out!
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