1980 Briggs & Stratton Hybrid - Jay Leno’s Garage

now were you surprised it we called that we even knew about this thing hitting admin on the road homes and last time it was out probably like 1988 [Music] they're one of the more unusual vehicles we featured here this was built by Briggs & Stratton as you can see there are six wheels it is a hybrid I guess it would be a 1980 model started building it in 78 for those of you perhaps outside the United States now familiar Briggs & Stratton one of the oldest engine manufacturers in America something like one hundred and twelve years old probably most popular most well-known for lawnmower engines gasoline engines stationary engines fact the first engine ever worked on my dad got me a Briggs and Stratton two horsepower single cylinder engine and I took it apart my dad wanted me to find out what's wrong with it you know I was like 11 I took it apart and I put it back to God I said dad I found out what was wrong with that engine he gave me so what was wrong said there's a piece of paper between the cylinder head and the engine block oh my dad won't know that's the head gasket I went oh okay I said I'm 11 what do you want you know so I learned a valuable lesson when I tried to start it and just just came off the side and okay that's what that piece of paper was for but anyway a lot of people don't know Briggs & Stratton built an automobile and this is an early hybrid which means a car's gas engine and electric power as well we have one of the technicians from Briggs & Stratton here Craig Clair Bob come in here Craig how are you my friend really good say your name right Craig clear bone there you go very good very good you know this is I didn't know about this car I just learned about it and you're involved pretty much at the beginning not from the beginning that was before me but I came in at the later end when we still were doing shows with it using it for promotional stuff I did technical work on it towards the end the last couple years the upgrades changing stuff maintaining it stuff and of course hybrid technology has changed so much since the 70 car : Owens magnetic over there which is a gas engine which powers an electric engine which powers the wheel how does this work the gas how does it work in conjunction with the electric engine this is what's called a parallel drive so you can drive the vehicle off the gasoline engine or you can drive it off the electric motor or off and it's selected by the driver some other hybrids use an engine to power a generator which powers the motor this is a mechanical connection from the engine to the driveline as well as so much like a modern Chevy Volt you could pull away on an electric and go how many miles make a selection on electric probably forty to sixty miles back okay let me throw a lead-acid back yes right not okay you could go forty sixty well that's pretty interesting yeah okay I think the most obvious questions people have but why two wheels in the back now the only driven wheel is the center wheel correct and explain why that why the rears are not driven the rear wheels is an additional axle to carry the extra weight of the batteries so the rest of the car that what you write in what you feel doesn't have the weight of the batteries on that suspension the batteries are on their own axle suspended it's kind of a built in trailer I see so these tires obviously could not take the weight of the bed great job well that's interesting because I remember seeing I think Mercedes have a hybrid and he even fought on a hybrid about the same time and they would be pulling a trailer which had a battery pack in it and then it had wires coming to the car that was sort of the idea or is this as the trailer built right right yeah well that's and the engine is a Briggs & Stratton a yes 18 horsepower Briggs and Stratton engine twin cylinder force it's a horse twin okay air cooled now was that out of another piece of equipment stationary engine of some kind of built specifically for this no that engine is what's used in stationary equipments generators or garden tractors lawn and garden it was basically a pretty stock engine for us and I think it has a four-speed manual transmission now is that a Briggs & Stratton unit or is that something brought in that transmission is out of a Ford along with like the clutch some of the driveline pulses Ford Pinto actually the front suspension steering just those weren't items that we wanted the design and build we just used parts available to do the concept right can we open the hood okay oh well look at that it's very much like a pen art the French car yeah okay we really can't see the cylinders here but everything in air is pulled in through here right and blows over the cylinders so on their heads are down here how many cc engine 42 cubic inches so the conversion on that I don't have off the top of my head okay that's about 800 yes my eight and a quarter something like that yeah all right boy it's it's very well done and this is you guys we're doing this really before anybody else was yeah this was kind of a unique idea Briggs & Stratton had to get away from using fossil fuels or more less reliance on fossil fuels but electric wasn't totally there yet so this kind of yeah I remember electric cars of the period were incredibly slow and they can only go like 11 miles or something like because they were basically just overgrown golf carts and the top speed was 35 miles an hour 40 miles an hour whatever it might be and that's where the reputation of electric cars being slow and really really started well then this is fancy so was the idea to break this Stratton to hopes to one day into the automobile business or did they want to sell a technology to somebody else there was they never had the intention of going into the automobile business what they did is they tried to show that cars can be made with smaller engines in that to try get closer to our market our size engines cruising on the highway you only need 14 to 20 horsepower to stay cruising right we have engines in that range this answered the question of how you going to get up to speed up to the 55 miles an hour national speed limit and then maintain the with the gas engine at that speed yeah it's fascinating and tell us about the designer this was a Brook Steven Brooks Stevens designed the bodywork on the design on it that must have been one of his last projects because he was quite an elderly gentleman but yeah he was involved with it and his son Kip was involved the actual time this design was selected and finished it was kind of handed over from Brooks to Kip at that time okay now I maybe it's my imaginary part some other cars on here um yeah you see VW Scirocco doors okay okay the VW door okay - and the windshield are from a Scirocco the front bonnet and the rear bonnet the bodywork that's all custom-designed and hand-built by Brooks Steven and the hatch as well yes okay the lights so all your batteries are under there can we see the bat certainly so how many volts system will be looking 72 volt DC there's 12 6 volt okay so this is basically you know I've got a 1909 Baker electric over there that's 78 volts okay we have our battery pack we have we have 12 6 volt batteries here right correct what they call deep-cycle lead-acid batteries explain to people why is 6 volt is better in this application in 12 book cause you think or 12 volt would be more but you have more volume here of them well yeah that the goal is to get to 72 volts for the motor we have 12 of the 6 volts that gets you to 72 volts you got a little higher capacity of the 6 volt batteries it's more of an industrial deep cycle battery so that's the reason for the 6 bolts you can force more electricity through the wire of the 6 volt then you can it's like if you had a garden hose a 12-volt would be smaller diameter but harder more powerful 6 volt would be a thicker hos you're getting more volume to it is that is that the voltage is what pushes it through the cable right so we're at 72 all the time it's not going to change it's more the difference is how you get to the 72 volts if you use 12 volt batteries to get the 72 you'd be in my math here and what you'd have in you gotta have the number of atoms yeah so you have the range right that's that's reason for my battery though 6 molecules you more volume or more range okay okay and these basically are what electric cars were from about 1899 just about 1980 just big deep-cycle lead-acid batteries at there that is new line of battery packs Briggs and Stratton has come out with so lithium-ion battery pack two of these will replace the power of output of one of those right now right and there's no fluids to change or anything in it no service lithium ion okay so each one of these basically is its own battery yes and you've something okay so we offer a five kilowatt hour battery pack that will eventually be used as being used to power stationary equipment or as our typical engines the applications we power now application anything that makes life easier or gets work done cuz those give off ozone correct and you've got to make sure the water is filled they've got it ventilated so that could because you some problem parked inside whereas this everything is sealed yes and it's just so much more capacity for the size of it right right oh cool well that's fascinating but it shows you we're still pretty primitive back in nineteen eighty seems relatively well it seems relatively recent to me but it's a long time ago yeah this is 40 years ago but still this is pretty much ahead of its time yeah the styling of it actually has held up pretty good yeah well the six wheels that I think what gets everybody going but now that you explained why because the other two wheels just carry the weight of the product what is a vehicle like this what is the whole vehicle way the whole thing weighs 3,200 pounds well that's just too bad not too bad at all and I imagine much excellent traction because you have a what about a 62% weight distribution here something I did not drive it aggressively enough to find all the limits we take this baby to 150 miles an hour what is the top speed about 60 68 miles per hour was done Richard Petty drove it on a closed course he must have been going yeah and I drum brakes all the way around actually does disc brakes a little front yeah well no I think it's fascinating because you know I think most people think Briggs and Stratton a little lawnmower engineering it must be tough today building can you even still build air cooled motors even stationary motors now because those also have a mission that yeah we started doing the emissions regulations in the early 90s and there's been different phases different levels and we make meet them yeah I mean we still make and sell a lot of internal combustion engines it's a lot of stuff powered by that but with this has kind of been the first thing we did and now it's coming back or going into electrification alright power equipment industry is going to electrification the power levels that you're going to see electrification are much higher getting into lawnmowers tractors and with our vanguard lithium-ion battery pack we can provide that power to those customers now that twin cylinder engine instead of 18 horse yeah correct but it looks like a Torquay motors they kept some good low in - yeah and that's typically how our applications are it's more of a low-end low speed most part it doesn't have I've got some paralyzed zap aha as the French say and that's not how the French thing but that's 850 CC air-cooled and it makes about 57 horsepower but it probably doesn't have the low-end torque of this big difference is our horsepower is rated at 3600 rpm by 3800 rpm listen this engines topped out right I would assume the one engines you're talking about or had a lot higher are oh yeah easily 55 oh yeah so your your torque your cylinder firing pressures of stuff like that's gonna be similar but they're just making it a higher rpm to get that horsepower rating and how many miles even guys put on this thing over the earth you know I think there's about 1,800 on the odometer and I believe that was it zeroed out well and we're gonna double that right now let's see what this baby can do should we drive electric first or gas first what do you think I guess it's up to you okay well why don't we do one since we're inside why don't we electric out the door and then we'll switch the gas with you okay that's right poly do it here hop in comfortable with the window down okay so we'll start off electric yep so the electric drive pull knob to enable yep that'll enable your battery pack okay turn the key on you can pull out up first give them a little wrist should latch pull give it a pull in the latch there you go oh there it is again pull turn the key turn the key on okay and you're ready to go pick a gear with just electric you don't even need to hold the clutch in Motors not turning at all oh so you let the clutch out and just start giving it the gas right now it's just like driving a regular car suddenly it's 1980 I mean actually cruises quite nicely and 60-mile seems amazing to me on live s with that battery technology Alex that's good the more I've learned about this and as we got this going again and seeing where the industry is gone it's really made me appreciation for what this was of the concept behind it yeah it doesn't feel that much heavier because Franklin's trying to still make a lot of air cooled motors are mostly water cooled we we don't make any water-cooled engines it's always been a strictly we have had some product lines with them some engines are water-cooled but they just it's not a little high volume good business to fit us well let me ask you a technical question because this is the question I get all the I have a Franklin which was the air-cool car okay two schools of thought the thinner the oil Iran and an air-cooled engine the cool correct you don't want to run a straight 50 way in an air-cooled motor not correct well I'm the kind of guy that says I need to see dyno tests I need to see test data to make it answer on it and the other part of it is most of the cooling comes from the fins in the air like that but as for butch coil gives you a little more cooling I think the lighter stuff I think the line is that because it's flowing yeah and I mean a thicker oil will hold heat correct better thermal conductivity with the lighter drain oil right right does it touches the surfaces because most guys I know running it's almost like water but it's one of those debates that people have back and forth you know versus Pepsi yeah but the other side of is the air-cooled engines typically run higher oil temperatures so then you want the thicker grade for the higher oil temperature kind of a trade-off like everything now when I'm driving an electric like this should I downshift yes so I guess the idea of being used electric around town then when I got on the highway you kill the electric yeah that's about the most efficient way yeah and what kind of mileage were they getting back in the day back in the day they were getting about 30 miles to the gallon on gasoline like ooh that's 55 cruising which 30 miles to the gallon back in the 50 was 200 or 300 percent better than a typical car was right most cars are getting you know there came forth [Music] go back in our gas engine well I guess an electric so we're using combination of both to pull away so when I shut off the gas engine that sort of D clutches right yes go strictly by trick advice first okay [Music] do you guys out of the walkie Greg correct no milwaukee's kind of like mode then Italy got all these and canoes ago harley-davidson come on high-tech stuff a lot of companies that air engine manufacturing that area we've got the cardboard breeding business of repulsion birth 300 but breaking the strata main business is still mostly air-cooled engine try well we used to be known as a manufacturer of internal combustion air cooled engines but we've recently come out with our Vanguard commercial series lithium-ion battery packs cry so that the poor equipment industry this switching is moving towards more electrification and our engineering and our background has put us ahead and that field of vacation of the most type applications of I was gassing guys everything diesel we did make some deals so there's early 70s we actually sell and make itself quite a few engines for gaseous fuel like liquid propane Brian natural gas for standby home standby generators are powered by whatever the home says metric as well so our engines have to run on fuel all over the world fix some of the fuel some other parts of the world are quite different NEADS for the engine we try to make a product that runs on all alone summons challenged on what seems to be a simple engine where are you guys on ethanol florid or against it with an era well I was looking for again it's just something you got to be aware of and you get to design your product for right you know what it was introduced the products I want to design for it yeah then it's gonna cause us conflicts but the stuff that's designed for it is just fine but and whether any other hybrids and you guys based the side of it totally Oliver is you don't think it's totally all original thinking because when I think back I remember there were some electric cars back in the 80s I think there's one called a t-rex and we just show up at drag ships and just blow the doors off gather people were astounded unbelievable yeah it just seemed crazy that electric car could be so fast but there really were no what's the most powerful engine Briggs in this track makes we're up to 40 horsepower oh yeah we have our our Vanguard commercial series engines we recently came out with 40 RS version - Louis fuel-injected and now we're working on electric electronic throttle put on to governing on him very good product for us it's actually furnace our big-block engines yeah commercially and internal it's the brakes big blocks can you make any comment is any more is there any carbureted and um a good majority of them are still carbureted really yeah there's a lot of engines that don't have 12 volt systems that are on the load of battery so to have any kind of advanced electronics or fuel injection on it's hard to do we do have one product with a fuel injection that's battery battery ulis fuel injection but it's a magneto making electricity either state or making the electricity forward but it's too complex and too expensive for a majority of our applications now is there mr. Briggs and mr. Stratton um well Stephen Foster Briggs partnered with the most mister strat for starting the company keep walk off you want to outboard engines he started outboard marina Evinrude outboard so it's been the Stratton family pretty much the whole time okay [Music] now were you surprised it we called that we even knew about this thing Edmund on the road homes and last time it was out probably like 1988 well have you some I hate jamm alcohol there was it was kind of a neat thing to hear from that you remember that you knew about the car the fact that I remember it from 30 or 35 years ago you know a lot of times we always think that the Europeans and the Japanese of the first with an idea and I think it's safe to say even a lot of the Prius engineering I think I don't know thank you evidence but a lot of it came from general owners but nobody here was interested at the time because gas is still relatively cheap correct when you point you would not look at it it's been in the warehouse when 30s it was like ah boy I got my work cut out for me you see my role is to thank y'all we actually have a museum that's pretty darn impressive yeah an entire Museum for the last 30 years so I went to the museum and just looked in starting a sensitive condition of it started with like the frame structure of it suspension then I started looking at the brakes or the car itself and it looked pretty good you say hey this is very possible I would pulled it out of the museum we just started one thing out of time starting going through and making the systems make sure they're workable it obviously the brakes suspension structural integrity was good we got that all on the engine I wasn't worried about where engine people whatever conditions that said right we'll get that going but that didn't take much and then the electronics somebody took old electronics at him but not turned on in 30 years we did that kind of a step and a power supply slowly brought up the voltage monitor the component electrode okay nothing burned up it's looking good it's driving alright then we bought batteries and got that in the compiler - broke it over here we are and here we are thank you Frank miss sing-along see peace and think differently yeah it does and that's kind of our philosophy of Briggs and Stratton we do a lot of unique things during staff that really applauded unique ideas the products we make do different than you get fired I just think different enough it's really a one-of-a-kind car the only one they ever built correct I never seen nothing like it so not to worry about seeing is how coming the other way this is even explicit compared to the McLaren that's right this is more exclusive than the McLaren f1 they built 64 those only one of these because there might be a reasonably okay field one telling on six miles but you know get a speeding ticket thank you very much my friend well thanks for having a featuring the car on the show this is really been yeah look back at ya the car here like 35 years ago unlike after that thing is depression yep you know or destroy it it's a mystery I tell you what if you get the more you should come visit on a company I will not see it in a CR Museum [Music] [Music]

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 1,648,307

Keywords: Briggs & Stratton, Hybrid, Richard Petty, two cylinder, electric, EV, 6 wheel car, motonerd, rare cars, Vanguard, battery electric, Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, compares cars, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, car gear, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, Camaro Z28, jay leno garage, jay lenos garage, car collection, cnbc, episode, motorcycle, ford, corvette, tour, dodge, lexus

Id: ftMxCehD08U

Length: 25min 38sec (1538 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 15 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/cougfan335]

This is one of my favorite videos he's done. There is something so cool about a car that challenges what can be done for totally practical purposes and way ahead of it's time.

[u/Shadow703793]

SIX WHEELS!!!

[u/iSlacker]

Wow, Jay with the quick maffs on the CI to CC conversion.

[u/an_actual_lawyer]

I love how Leno just loves cars - all of them.

There are about a dozen stories on the lotus boards of him flipping illegal u-turns to stop guys driving Elans or Elise/Exiges around LA. Dude has 9 figures worth of cars and genuinely wants to talk to folks about their $30,000-$60,000 4 pot Elan. Then taking their kid for a ride in whatever he was driving that day.

If I had fuck you money, this is what I’d do - collect cars, drive them, talk about them, and pay people damn well to take care of them and rebuild them.

[u/start3ch]

Not too different from Dyson building a car with consumer electronics and motor experience

[u/CMDR_omnicognate]

Similar thing to the Tyrrell P34 and the Williams 2-4-0. I do sometimes wonder why there aren't any super cars that tried this 6 wheel design, since you get more traction at the rear end it could accelerate faster, but i guess with downforce and Computer stability control, its not worth the extra complication of trying to make a really durable drivetrain for it that won't just fall apart after 200 miles

[u/naftid]

This car is normally in the Briggs & Stratton showroom in their corporate headquarters in Wauwatosa, WI. Pretty interesting to see the race cars and drag cars they’ve developed from small engines over the past 100 years.

[u/ZapatosDeMarca]

Such an awesome guest. You can tell he can passionately talk about cars for days on end.

[u/cz_masterrace]

The 1993 Ferrari Conciso guy was also an incredibly humble and nice car guy he had on the show