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Microdot
1976 Microdot
Overview
Type	Concept car
Production	1976 1 built
Designer	William Towns
Body and chassis
Related	Austin Mini
Dimensions
Length	6 ft 8 in (2.03 m)
Curb weight	1,008 lb (457 kg)
Chronology
Predecessor	Minissima

The Microdot was a concept design by William Towns for a small, economical town car. The car was first shown at the 1976 British International Motor Show and was an evolution of his 1972 Minissima car. The Microdot was a petrol/electric hybrid vehicle with a small 400cc petrol engine powering a 3.5 kW generator and, designed to carry three people side-by-side on short city journeys, with the driver sitting in the central position.

Mallalieu Engineering

In 1979 William Towns collaborated with prototype vehicle builders at Mallalieu Engineering, Wootton, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, with a view to limited production. The Microdot prototype, built by William Towns on a cut-down Austin Mini chassis, was given opening doors and a 6-inch (150 mm) longer nose, to accommodate the aluminium Reliant car engine, one of the smallest and lightest UK car engines then available, instead of the original hybrid proposal. Mallalieu Engineering was best known for making Bentley Specials, the Barchetta and Oxford, based on the Mark 6 Bentley.

The engineers had a target of 100 miles per Imperial gallon. Under the prototype label of "Matrix" a business plan, it was proposed by Mallalieu's managing director Noel Hodson, to sell several hundred "Chelsea" Microdots a year to POSSFUND, the venture-capital arm of the Post Office pension fund, then one of the largest funds in the world, managed by Ralph Quartano.

The recession of the early 1980s, and the growth in small economical cars such as the Austin Metro and Ford Fiesta, stopped the hybrid-drive project. Mallalieu Microdot (company number 01504509) was dissolved on 23 June 1987 and Mallalieu Engineering (company number 01215691) was dissolved in 1989, and the project disappeared.

Design

Designers from film special-effects studios in London, who had created the original Star Wars spaceship interiors, created "alive" interior cockpit designs and motor industry experts from Lucas and Ever Ready advised on batteries, power-trains and instruments. Relying on 8-track stereo tape recordings by celebrities, it was planned that a Microdot would "talk" to its owner.

• Together with the Minissima
• Interior
• Dashboard

References

1. "Micro what?". Motor. 149 (3864): 36. 30 October 1976.
2. Popular Science (page 90) February 1977
3. ARonline Microdot
4. "Concepts : Towns Microdot". AR Online. 14 September 2016. Retrieved 7 September 2023.
5. "WebCHeck - Select and Access Company Information". Wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk. Retrieved 28 September 2009.

• Heritage Motor Centre

External links

• Media related to Microdot vehicles at Wikimedia Commons

• Concept cars
• Microcars
• Electric concept cars
• Hybrid electric cars
• Cars of England