Seeing a post by Twin Turbos reminded me of this... love to drive this thing at least once... not any more then that because it would be really hard to see where you are going...

This is a life-size version of the famous Hot Wheels Twin Mill:



Source: http://info.detnews.com/joyrides/story/index.cfm?id=302

The following is a scale model of it (larger then a hot wheels).



Source: http://www.diecast.org/diecast98/htm.../reviewpix.htm

 

Twin 502's, , always loved the quad eng dragster.

 

4 wheel drive?

 

Yep! Main problem was traction in those days. Even with 4WD, that thing would roast 'em most of the way down the strip on those hard tires. Once they figured out soft compounds and wrinkle wall tires, those 401 nail-head Buicks became redundant. Still, that must have been quite a show...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears that the engines on one side drive the front, and the other side drives the rear...

Hans

 

This was Mattels first 'unique' design - prior to this they had only done actual production cars. Look closely at the body lines on the Twin Mill (as well as the Turbofire and Torero). THey were designed by Ira Gilford. Care to guess where he worked before Mattel? Yep, that's right GM Design. One can clearly see the influence of show cars like the Mako Shark and others in these toys not to mention the C3. And don't think it's a bad gig either. Imagine no committees, no beaurocracy, no nasty weather on So Cal unlike Warran MI - you might design several complete cars a year and see them go into production by the millions rather than say a fender design that gets nitpicked and done over and over again because Cafaro thinks it doesn't make the *** look big enough.

The original Twin Mill from 1969 was designed around a generic smaller V8. Personally I think it is a much more striking design w/ either no exposed engines or a smaller engine (like the orig) w/o ~24" add'l inches of BB blower and scoop that are too disproportionate. Otherwise it relagates a striking design to somewhat cartoonish. All my opinion and I'm sure others want/like/desire engine engine engine.

I suspect the 'real' TM would not be a picnic to drive. Beyond the obvious that there is no visibility except to the sides I think the viscous coupling of the two drives has been problematic and I doubt it has any sort of modern traction control system besides limited slip. Last I checked they only drive it between the carrier and the show (and despite repeated requests they've never provided a schedule of it's appearances so I gave up wondering if it would come near me last year).

THanks for sharing - nice to see an image of this one appear in the C3 forum - it's an appropriate forum for it I figure.

PS: yes I collect some of the Twin Mill diecast - last I counted something like 25+ different unique releases from 1969 to present by 4 or 5 different co's besides Mattel incl counterfeits.

 

http://www.buicks.net/misc/tommy_ivo.html

 

Thanks for the awesome text on the subject!!!

I found the Twin Mill site when I was googling for "Zingers Autorama"... because of an ad/article I found in a 1981 magazine. It had a 2 page full color spread of 3 Zingers that were made into life-size cars, including a C3 Corvette with a HUGE motor.

Seeing the pictures of the life-size Twin Mill got me very excited to say the least.

Let me know if you ever find out when it is showing up somewhere. I searched all over trying to find out a real date.

 

Two engines in line drove the rear axle and the other side drove the front axle. Smoked the front and the rears didn`t. Impressive machine that never really ran in the money and was later converted to a dragster exibition funny car with a Olds body. Actually driven by Don Perdome at the 61 Indy Nationals where it first ran in national competition.

 

i can remember when the 2 cars traveled and made pass'