May 16, 2013 • 41 mins
When is a tractor not a tractor? When it's an A-traktor, of course. Join Scott and Ben as they explore the history of these unique vehicles (and the legal loopholes that make them so popular).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from how Stuff works dot Com. I everyone
to welcome to car Stuff. I'm Scott Benjamin and I'm
Ben Bullet and we've got a topic that is a
Facebook listeners suggestion today. Uh comes from Simon, and Simon
(00:23):
is from Oma in Northern Ireland. And Simon, thank you
for telling us how to pronounce that. Yeah, we never
would have never would have made it there. But um, anyways,
from Northern Ireland, and Simon says, there's something going on
in Sweden that maybe of interest to you. Uh, there's
this phenomenon of converting road cars into pickup trucks. And uh,
(00:44):
it's actually a little bit different than that. They're actually
converting road cars and pickup trucks into tractors, as we'll
find out, but legally speaking, the tractors, legally speaking their tractors.
But the idea is that kids from about I think
he said fifteen, but it's really sixteen can get on
the road without a license wroughtout a car license. Rather,
this is all stuff we're gonna we're gonna go into this.
(01:06):
We'll turn all this up in the episode. But uh,
they take some kind of sedan, like an old Volvo
or something like that. They cut out the back end
make it into what he calls a Swedish el Camino,
which I liked. And the real interesting thing is that
they restrict the speed of these vehicles to thirty kilometers
per hour, which is about eighteen miles per hour. I'm sorry, Yeah,
(01:27):
thirty kilometers which is around eighteen miles per hour? What
do you think of that? And I thought that's pretty interesting.
Let's maybe investigate this. Yes, so Simon, thank you for
writing in with this excellent suggestion. Um, we've interacted with
Simon a little bit on Twitter as well. Uh, it
turns out there is quite a story to the Swedish
(01:48):
a tractor. The the interesting thing here that we should
set out at the beginning, Um, why are these kids
driving these now or why why do they want to? Well,
the legal age for a driving license in Sweden is eighteen,
so there's this certain amount of time where they're not
(02:08):
allowed to drive a finger quotes car, but they can
drive a finger quote tractor. Yeah it's a farm equipment
or farm implement, and they get around this rule that way,
and so this becomes been what they call a loophole
vehicle and that you know, these these kids are these
adults who are creating these vehicles with these kids are
(02:29):
are creating these loophole vehicles that allow them to get
on the road, allow them to drive on the city
streets really and something that you know, or earlier and
you know, up to two years earlier than they normally would.
And I was starting to think of other loophole kind
of loophole esque vehicles that we've talked about, and immediately
three wheel cars come to mind. You know that they
(02:50):
they you know, have licensing, etcetera like a motorcycle. Um,
some of the micro and mini and bubble cars come
to mind, a few of them, not not all of them. Uh,
cycle cars of course, Um, mopeds came to mind, and
that that's sort of in a way, a lot of
those become loophole vehicles and that they stay to under
fifty ccs in order to avoid the motorcycle designation with
(03:11):
all the taxes and licensing that go along with that.
So you know, loophole vehicles are nothing new. Um but um,
I had never heard of these Swedish a tractors. And
it turns out, you know, he he says, that, you know,
Simon says, there's something going on in Sweden right now. Um, honestly, Ben,
this has been going on for and he didn't know.
(03:32):
I didn't know. This has been going on for like
seventy years. Yeah, let's time travel back, shall we, Scott
to the beginning of these uh, homemade tractors, which weren't
always called A tractors, no, no, no. The fact they
were the early versions of these things where actually called
I'm gonna go with EPA. How always say EPA, it's
(03:53):
e p A tractors and that stands for think be
called in heads priss a b uh unity price company.
This was open in the nineteen thirties. They sold cheap
products of varying quality according to the stuff we've read, Yeah,
commodity store, right and they said, it's kind of like
(04:14):
a uh you know, I hate to say the name
along with it now that you said cheap, but Sears
and Roebuck they sold a lot of things back in
the day. If you look at an old, old, old
Sears and Robot catalog, they sold everything from houses to
Crossley automobiles to you know, shirts and pants and you know,
anything else you wanted. Farm implements everything. Um, so that
(04:34):
it's kind of like the Swedish version of Sears and Roebuck,
but maybe on a lower level, you know, less quality maybe. Uh.
Now again we're we're being very careful because we don't
want to say offensive things about companies. But we've heard
it referred to as a general interest department store where
not everything is bad, but not everything is great, kind
(04:56):
of kind of what you might refer to as a
kmart thing. No offense came out, I'll just say, and
see you get into this hole when you start doing
that now. But the thing is that this, this is
a trend that started in Sweden before and I'll say
during World War Two. And the whole reason, the entire
reason that this thing began is because you got to remember,
at wartime there was actually a shortage of tractors and
(05:19):
farm equipment at the time in the in the country,
and uh, you know before um, you know, they were
able to get manufacturing back up and rebuild some of
these tractors and farm implements and things that they were missing.
What they did have a lot of was a lot
of Ford Model A vehicles and the Model A A trucks,
which are the commercial version, right, Yeah, the heavier trucks,
(05:41):
which can be recognized by the double wheels in the rear.
And one of the reasons that they used these vehicles,
as you I think you said, they had quite a
few of them around, which is always great when you're
talking spare parts. Yeah, and you would think like, well,
why didn't they just use the truck as you know,
as it said, why wouldn't they just use a you know,
(06:03):
model A truck, because we've seen them do some pretty
amazing things, right, um, you know, model even model ts,
we've seem do a pretty amazing things. They were turned
into these incredible farm machines where people would drive sawmills
with them. They would turn them into uh, you know,
snowmobile like vehicles, you know with skids on the front
and and belts in the back or you know, your
wheels in the back, but still able to drive through snow.
(06:24):
And you know, the thing is that they needed them
to haul things, They needed them to pull things. They
needed them for so many different reasons. And there were
there were laws on the record that said, you know,
we have to if if it's going to be used
as a farm equipment or registered as a farm farm equipment.
It's got to conform to these certain things. So you know,
we'll talk about some of these, uh, these requirements in
(06:45):
just a moment. But um, you know, the Swedish government
they actually at one point, you know, once we got
to the point where people are starting to build these
things which are like, you know, utility vehicles. I mean,
they've been likened to the Australia in utility vehicles like
the like the el Camino that Simon mentioned, right, Um,
But but these are more for farm youth strictly off
(07:08):
road use and then occasionally on road to haul things
back and forth from the barn, you know, to the
main house or whatever. But they weren't really intended to
be road cruisers or anything like that. Um. And the
Swedish government decided that they were going to just after
the war, they were going to kind of regulate these
things out. They were gonna say, like, we see what
they're doing here, but we don't want them on a roads.
(07:29):
We're gonna we're gonna get rid of them. Right And
when they wanted to phase them out after they had
already become fairly common, I think we can we can
say that with a huge degree of certain Yeah, and
there's some rules. I mean I mentioned rules. I mean
it just I don't know if you had the rules
of a body on the frame. Uh, maximal wheelbase of
(07:50):
two hundred centimeters. It's about seven ft unsprung rear axle,
which is important later. Yeah, that means that means the
axles attached directly to the and a ten to one
gear ratio. Okay, so that's a very high gear. I
mean that's a I'm sorry, a low your ratio and
that um, that's kind of like you know what you
would expect a garden tractor or something like that to have,
(08:10):
you know, stump pulling type type power. So it's very
very low speed vehicle. Really. Um. Now, when the Swedish
government wanted to regulate these things will almost out of
out of existence because they didn't quite succeed, as we'll
find out again, still called EPA tractors, right, and they
have previously been called built tractors at one point that
(08:32):
I do need to make your scott. A tractor in
Swedish terminology, uh doesn't always have to be a car.
It can sometimes be a truck or bus that's been
converted to agricultural machinery. Okay, got it. Okay, so that
you know that's gonna come up in just a moment
with the new rules, uh for for you know, the
modern version of this. But at the time, I remember,
(08:54):
this is just post World War two. Now, another vehicle
that they had that that even after the government said
we're gonna make these changes to this thing that you
have to conform to in order to to make these tractors. Um,
one vehicle that was very close to uh to um,
I don't know, already having some of the characteristics that
they needed for this vehicle. I think I know when
(09:16):
you're talking. It was a Volvo, right, yeah, the Volvo Duet,
Is that correct? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, the Volvo Duet
had uh this fortunate perfect storm thing for any would
be trackdoor builder, because not only did it confirm to
some of the changing regulations, I believe the majority of
the changing regulations, but it also was a common vehicle
(09:38):
in Sweden at the time, just like the Model A. Yes,
they had lots and lots of of these Volvo vehicles around,
of several different types really, but the Duet, I guess,
was one that was commonly modified. UM. Now you'll notice
also that a lot of these what they call old
school app A tractors. You'll see that a lot of
them a D from from Volvo vehicles. Um. But then
(10:01):
let's jump ahead now, I guess, yeah, let's dump um.
So let's jump ahead to maybe the I guess in
the sixties there was kind of still this movement on,
you know that they're going to kind of do something
with them, But it wasn't until the mid seventies when
the government of the Swedish government actually wanted to phase
out all of the EPI tractors again. And the reason
they had done this, I'm just gonna go back just
(10:21):
a couple of years. The reason they had done this
was that the EPI tractors were starting to I mean,
they were still around, but they weren't as prominent in
the sort of the sixties era until some young people
discovered that you could use a tractor to get around
(10:43):
the eighteen and over driving band, and then they became
more and more popular. And this leads to what we're
talking about in I think it's thirty one March, So
March thirty one, nineteen, EPI tractors were going to be banned,
and then the Republic. There was a public outcry because
(11:03):
the public in general. Now I know a lot of
people thought these things are a menace on the road.
You know, they're they're too slow there whatever we find out,
but um, the public really didn't want to give up
their epic tractors, and they're just they realize that these
are too handy. I mean, not only does allow someone
who's you know, younger than the driving age to drive, uh,
you know, two years prior to when they're able to
(11:26):
normally drive an automobile. Um, it also is something a
vehicle that really it had some you know, actual utilitarian use,
I guess. I mean it was actually a vehicle that
they were using. You know, they had a purpose. Um,
they weren't just you know, hot rods at this point.
So you know, they're they're actually a handy vehicle to
have around. And people thought, well, do we really want
(11:47):
to do without them from this point forward? Yeah, and
let's also keep them on. Maybe this is a little
bit more of a qualitative point. The farmers in question
and the agricultural workers in question also we're probably close
to these vehicles because not only did they work with
them every day, but they customized and modified these vehicles
(12:08):
on their own. Yeah, these were definitely their cars. This
may be a good point for, you know, a point
for someone to go and take a look at what
an a tractor looks like, because after, you know, anything
prior to let's say, the mid seventies was called an
EPI tractor. Anything after the nineteen seventies is called an
A tractor. And I'm not sure why they came up
with the A tractor. Did you hear any origin of
(12:29):
the name A tractor in any way? Well, I I
know that don't don't get mad fans of EPA, but
from a lot of the stuff that I've read, the
EPI reputation became so bad that they dropped the name
because like people didn't want to call it an EPI tractor.
But really, yeah, the public didn't. UM didn't apparently love
(12:53):
EPI that much. They started to get a bad reputation.
But I want to make sure that this is underlines
here that reputation for the store in no way reflects
on the tractors themselves, which are great pieces of machines. Oh, absolutely,
because each one is individual. Um. Of course we mentioned
that they're they're registered as farm equipment you know, these
(13:13):
aren't produced anywhere. These are these are homegrown vehicles. Really, Um,
someone is taking a vehicle and modifying it in a way.
Now that that creates an a tractor out of an
existing vehicle. Uh, so you know there's nothing there's nowhere
you can go and buy one of these that you
know is a is a clone of one that you
see somewhere else in town. Um, these are all individual vehicles.
(13:34):
Now there's a bunch of new things here that we
need to get to, regulations, regulations that um, you know,
the the government again in the mid seventies said, you
know these are this is something you're gonna have to
adhere to. And if, boy, if you can't do it,
then we're just not gonna have to not gonna have
any of these tractors anymore on our roads. And so
they kind of let loose with this this long list
(13:56):
of things that that made it seemingly pretty difficult to
create a tractor that would be roadworthy. Uh you know that,
let's get into the list and see if you can
make up your own mind if like maybe this would
be something that would be challenging to you to build
a vehicle that would adhere to this or if it's easy. Okay,
that's a that's a great point to start from. So
(14:17):
this is where we hit number one, the top speed
that Simon mentioned earlier, which is eighteen miles per hour
thirty kilometers an hour, not exactly burning up the raceway. Okay, yep,
they've but they did. They did drop the frame requirement
and they also dropped the wheelbase requisite. So yeah, exactly.
So the wheelbase is you know, no longer has to
(14:37):
be seven ft. It could be anything really, but the
frame requirement thing, they they said that, um, you know,
it doesn't have normally have to be or doesn't now
have to be a frame on top of our rather
a body on top of a frame. But that made
unibody vehicles available for donor vehicles, and that led to
you know, some of the modern Volvo cars being used again,
(14:58):
so people are using even current a Volvo cars as
a tractors. Again. Um, but I've probably given too much away.
So there's also what the something but the axle right, yeah, yeah,
the axles don't have to be unsprung and there's no
set axle ratio. There is, however, requirement for a token
truck bed. Yeah. Now, this is fun. Have you seen
(15:20):
the photos of this man? Yeah, yeah, it's uh, it
can't be larger than one point two five square meal. Okay,
now that's now for anybody else who doesn't understand or
it doesn't you know, quite get the meter thing um
about thirteen and a half square feet if you want
to look at it that way. I'm total And you know,
what is that cute? It may be cuic uh that
made that might be a type in the article, but
(15:41):
that's not that's not too bad. It's it's not very big.
If you look at the photo, look at the look
at the image of any of these eight tractors, and
they've had a tiny, tiny little bed on the back.
And the funny thing is, if it was a truck,
it's completely covered except for this little it's almost like
a cube, a little small cute and you wouldn't be
able to carry anything in it, really, I mean, it
(16:03):
just seems like it's a it's there for show only.
But but the point is that you have to render
the rest of the truck bed unusable except for uh
that one point to five square meters, And it just
seems so silly. I mean, you look at these these
big truck beds that they have you know, in small
pickup or whatever, and really it's just a tiny little box.
(16:23):
And part of this goes back into a an ongoing debate,
which is why were the regulations phrased this way. Was
there a legitimate concern about the size of truck beds
or was some regulatory entity trying to make a tractors undesirable?
(16:43):
It was probably at the second one there and uh,
and the other thing is that you know, if you
have a car, you've got to add a truck bed
to it, and that becomes a quite a task for
somebody who's not you know, adapt at welding and modification
and manifabrication fabrications. So you know, this is another challenge
for for the builders. And that's where the sport you'd
vehicle that we mentioned earlier, you know, the the Australian
(17:04):
utility vehicles that they have still uh, the El Camino
looking vehicles, you know, that comes in. But the but
the beds are very very small. So even in a
car you've got something, you know, they have to make
a bed and then it has to be a certain dimension. Um.
The other thing is they have to have a triangle
on the back of the vehicle, but no license plate.
Now the triangle is like what you'd see on an
Amish buggy or something like that. Moving vehicle or if
(17:27):
a semi truck breaks down. They put them out by
the road, the very big orange reflective triangles. What does
it indicate, Oh, I just slow, Yeah, I mean it
has it's a hazard. It's a watch out. Yes, I
mean that, you know me exactly, like if somebody is approaching,
you know this is obviously a slow vehicle. I think
that's what probably exactly why the Amish have it on
(17:48):
the back of their vehicle, for for visibility and just
to let people know this is not a motorized vehicle.
I've seen it on the back of hay wagons and
things like that too. Yeah, and you are right that
it is a sign put out when a truck driver,
for instance, has a breakdown. You can also put it
out if you're in a normal cars, sedan or something
(18:09):
that breaks down, change an attire or something like that. Um.
A couple other rules here, they still have a few
of them here. Um Uh. They're not to be used
for personal transport. Now, this is a tricky one. Yeah,
people get around this one of course, just like they do, um,
you know the official designation for historic vehicles. You know,
when people have historic plates on their car, they're not
(18:31):
supposed to be used for anything other than like parade
activities and uh, I think it's to and from repair
shops right right, Yes, So you can go to a
car show, you can participate in a parade or I
think a charity event, club events, things like that, but
you're not supposed to be just driving it to and
from work every day because of you know the plate restriction.
Well these are these are like you know, similar in
(18:53):
that way, and that you're not supposed to use it
for personal transportation. However, you know everybody does asterix. This
also brings us to another another part of this. It
was very interesting to me, so thirty kilometers now are
e two miles an hour? That's the limit, the legal limit. However,
if you check on some of the forums about a tractors,
(19:17):
if you check on some of the other information, you'll
see a lot of people saying that this rule is
not widely followed, and even even some people on the
forums disagree about what the top speech should be. Is
it thirty or is it forty. I'm fairly certain it's thirty.
I bet it's thirty. And but the problem is, like
even the author of this article that Simon sent us, uh,
(19:39):
you know, on on a tractors, Um, it says that
the author says he's never seen one uh that can
go under fifty or they can they can't. I'm sure
it's sorry. They can't exceed fifty kilometers per hour, which
is about what thirty one something like that. Um, okay.
And they're also not for trans transporting goods. Um, that's
(20:00):
something this This is really tricky in that you know,
it's got this truck bed, so it's it's meant to
haul something, right if that's for transporting goods. So what
they're saying here is that, UM, I guess maybe a
way to describe this is that if the vehicle has
three seats abreast, like a like an old pickup truck,
would you know, like a ben a bench seat, let's say,
versus two bucket seats or two chair type seats. Um,
(20:23):
that's okay, you can you can leave it like that,
but only if the original vehicles set up that way
prior to the conversion. So you know, you can't create
you can't put a bench seat in a vehicle that
didn't have a bench seat and say that you know
it carries three people. But like large trucks or old
pickup trucks, that's fine. Uh. There's also no second role
for passengers allowed. Um. And you can't carry any goods
(20:46):
or any kind of other items in the back there.
That the the the extra space behind the front seats
is not for storage of anything. You can't have a
second role for passengers. You can't have storage for anything.
You can't carry anything in that's that's the strict rule. Uh.
So vans, big cars, crew cab things like that. Um,
(21:07):
anything behind the front seats has to be removed and
just gutted. And that's why a lot of them end
up just chopping the vehicle off at that point, which
is why these can look very strange to someone who's
not not ready for the site. You you see what
looks like the front half of a Model A and
then it's chopped. There's still back wheels there, but there's
(21:28):
this tiny little, tiny, tiny bed, tiny little bit. And uh,
I wanted to I'm sorry, I wanted to go back
and correct some of the things I said. I don't
know exactly why. I haven't found exactly why they're called
a tractors. I'm gonna dig in deeper and look into that. However,
we are correct, that's that is the slow moving sign. Uh.
(21:49):
And it was made mandatory on January one, very good.
Before then it was volunteering. I have some quick research. Well,
I have the I have my I have my know
it's typed out. But then I got I hate to
admit it, Scott, I got sucked into looking at these
very interesting, like striking pictures of these vehicles. You know
(22:10):
what kind of get just two more actually, just one
more little thing. Um. There's also a toe hitch, which
is mandatory. So they all have to have a toe
hitch on the back, because a tractor would have a
toe hitch on the back for wagons whatever it's towing
farm other farm implements as well. Now you know what
I agree with you on, and that's just about it
for the New World. But I agree with you completely
on looking at these things. It's not at all what
(22:31):
you would expect. Now we're talking about tractors, and you
would think that, you know, the kind of variety like
maybe you'd see out on the farm, like the John
Deer tractors, or you can think of maybe the kind
that you used to mow your yard, you know, the
I don't know, the Sears craftsman variety that's very very
small boxing. You know, just a you know, four four
stroke engine under the hood and maybe a headlight or too,
(22:53):
you know, if you're fancy, maybe maybe it's something you
just parking the shed, you know, that type of thing.
But this is nothing like this. These these look like
hot rods. Yeah, a lot. And just like the original
name epic tractor implies, there is a wide range of
let's let's call it, uh aesthetics, because we've got You've
(23:15):
got some that look just amazing like you would see
him in a car show. Especially remember this, uh, this
one right here with really big back wheels. There's a
dragster looking one that in this article that's uh. If
you go on our Facebook, you can find this conversation
that we had with Simon and uh and look up
the article. UM, it's it's pretty interesting. Or you can
(23:36):
just search for this article if you like. I mean,
it's called the history of the Swedish a tractor and
it's got several great photos. I mean, some of these
are beautiful vehicles really, um, and you'll find that, you know,
a lot of them are are kind of done up
in hot rod fashion instead of you know, just getting
you know, from home to the town. You know that
that that type of vehicle, not an a two B
transportation type vehicle, but more like the style of getting there. Right. Yes,
(24:01):
if you had a let's say, sixteen year old and
lived in a place for driving age was eighteen, would
you be fun with your kid driving an a tractor?
This is a tough question. It's a tough question out
here in the States driving ages sixteen ballpark. I mean
you get your learners permitting all that, right, I mean,
(24:21):
there's I know, the process and I um boy, this
is a tough one because these are so restricted in
what they allow. Um. I don't know. It's kind of
a homemade vehicle though, and I wouldn't be too confident
about that. I think maybe that would be the only
thing that would hold me back is that you're putting
your kid out there on the road in a vehicle
that can only travel eighteen miles per hour. Supposedly other
(24:43):
vehicles are traveling around that vehicle a lot faster. That
may be a danger um again, the home homemade aspect
would be a potential concern um. Of course, then you
can go the other way with that, you can make
it overly safe. Really, boy, I don't know, ben, I
I think uh, I don't think I would. Well, in
(25:04):
the defense of the people who have made this decision,
we do need to point out that a lot of
times these vehicles are have already been in existence in
the family, you know, so they're reliable, they're in tingered
with hand me downs. Yeah, um, if we want to
call him that. And also that I think you make
an excellent point about the speed, because I get the
(25:25):
sense that a lot of these are in more rural communities. Yeah,
and you know, it's it's so handy for someone to
be able to say to their their son or daughter
who is sixteen, Uh, you know, can you please run
down to the feed jop And I need I need
six you know whatever, I need six bales of that
of this, hey or whatever. I need bags of something,
(25:46):
you know, some type of feed um or whatever it
happens to be. However, I think that a lot of
these are just being used for like kids cruising, which
I think is so cool. I mean maybe I'm on
the different, different side of this because I think it
if I had a kid, I would be the coolest
dad ever for being able to say, you know, I
(26:06):
know you can't drive till you're eighteen. I know you
can't drive a car. I mean, yeah, that's right. Yeah,
it's like a It's like a bigger kid, go card.
I guess right, Yeah, maybe i'd be a better uncle.
Now let's get back to this though, because the purpose
of all these rules. Now we just read you that
long list of rules to that break, remember that that,
um we're meant really and this is the main purpose.
(26:27):
You gotta remember, the Swedish government is trying to make
these vehicles unattractive to anyone. They're trying to say, you know,
you've got to do this, this and this and um all,
by the way, we've got this, this and this also
you have to do Yeah. So they're trying to make
it inconvenient. Yeah, exactly. Inconvenient is probably the best way
to say it, but very very unappealing or unattractive. Now,
what that did really was make people say, you know what,
(26:51):
I'm going to build a car that that conforms to
your standards. Yet it is still something that I want
to drive, something that's cool, or something I can put
my kid in that will be will be proud of together,
and I want to point out that this reminds me
so much of some of the engineering at Formula one.
And oh yeah, so it becomes a challenge for a
lot of these people. You know that they say, I'm
(27:11):
gonna I'm gonna do this whether you want to really
want me to or not. I can see that you
don't want me to without just outright banning the vehicles. Um,
so you know, make the rules as tough as you can.
I'm gonna do my best to sort through all them
and make something, make something out of this. Yeah. And
when we say, by the way, guys, well we we
say that there was an attempt to ban them completely
(27:33):
and it failed due to public uproar. We do mean
public uproar. There were protests, there were there was a
petition with almost seven thousand people signed up. That's the
reason that the Swedish government did not completely banned them,
but instead tried this a little sneakier way, a little
more passive aggressive way of just saying, well, okay, if
(27:55):
we can't make him illegal, will make him stink. And
you know what the thing is now that we we've
mentioned this loophole vehicle, right that you know, this is
what has become, and we talked about the age and
all that. It's not just for kids though it's in fact,
I guess we'll find out that right now that you know,
it's not strictly people between the age of sixteen and
eighteen that are driving these things. These also have use
(28:19):
for old farmers who still continue to use these vehicles,
you know, maybe even the ones that you know are
you know, ballpark World War two vehicles and possibly some
new ones. You know, because a lot of these guys
are very very handy in the workshop. You know, they're
able to weld very well and uh and create things.
So you know, you'd be surprised what old farmers can
turn out of a barn. These are mcge trunks, yeah, exactly. Now, Also,
(28:41):
this is interesting. I don't know if I like this
too much. People who have had their their licenses revoked
due to drunk driving or you know, for whatever reason.
But maybe they've racked up a numerous speeding or reckless
driving people, People who are not allowed to have an
actual driving license for an actual car can still get
(29:06):
around it. Also, the taxes and insurance are much lower, yeah,
extremely low on these things because their farm implements their tractors.
So you know, it's very very low because how much
you know, how much insurance do you have to carry
on something that really is supposed to be sitting in
a barn or out in a field or something like
that on you know, private property, off road use doesn't
(29:27):
really have to have a lot of of UM insurance
carried along with that because you're not truly supposed to
be interacting with with other drivers on the road all
that much, if at all, which could make this and
I think, I see what you're seeing where you're going, Scott,
This could make it a very dangerous perfect storm because
then we could have someone who is a dangerous driver
(29:50):
UM back on the road and having I don't know,
more money to spend on crime. Well maybe I don't
know like that, but you know what, sometimes and I've
seen this in my past, Ben, I know that, uh man,
this is going back to high school days. But there
was a guy, an older guy. I didn't even know
who he was, but you know, I had worked at
(30:10):
this hardware store and this guy would work somewhere nearby
in the same strip mall area, and uh, I was
at the hardware store all the time, and I'd see
this guy ride by on his moped. And you know,
one of the older guys that worked with me said,
you know, that guy lost his license two years ago,
uh for drunk driving, after you know X number of offenses.
He just completely lost the license of life. And the
(30:32):
guy would use a moped for you know, as long
as he possibly could, from you know, spring until fall,
you know, when the snow hit um to get around
town because he couldn't get a driver's license. However, he
could get a moped license at the time. Now, I
don't know if it's changed or not, but that's the
reason that this you know, I don't know if he
was in this. He seemed old to me, but he
may have been like, you know, thirties four exactly. Yeah,
(30:55):
so he was in his thirties or forties. And I
was wondering why this guy is using a moped to
get around town. And you know, I saw him a
good distance from you know, where we worked occasionally, so
I know that, you know, this is his main method
of transportation. I was kind of curious about it, and
that's what I asked and he told me so. I
have to say, though, while while we are showing the
maybe the darker side of this, I'm fairly convinced from
(31:16):
what we read that this is not the primary use
of a tractors. I really do think they're more for
loophole cars for young adults and then for legitimate farm
use purposes. Although now what's interesting is that shortage of
quote unquote real tractors UH from World War Two is
(31:39):
no longer in business. You can get a real tractor,
it no longer exists, but people continue to build a
tractors and of course, you know, was despite the Swedish
government's best efforts, you know, to to thwart that. Um.
What what's really interesting maybe in this whole thing is
that a lot of people in uh, you know, the
car culture and in Sweden see this as kind of
a star earting point for them in their hot rotting
(32:02):
or they're customizing. Um. You know. So so when you
look at the pictures that you know, follow along with
these the if you if you look up a tractors,
you'll see these, um a lot of them do have
a hot rod look to them. You know, they're they're
completely slammed to the ground. I mean they're an inch
off the ground. A lot of them have enormous rear tires,
look like drag cars. Um, you know, air cleaners sticking
out of the hood, candy apple paint jobs. Um. Some
(32:24):
of them are are really striking. Some of them are
really beautiful, Others are more utilitarian looking. Others have you know,
rough body work. They just haven't had the time and
effort put into them that some of the others have.
And that I'm glad you made that point that this
is a great sort of feeder for the customizing scene.
And one thing that we should also emphasize is that
(32:47):
these vehicles can change hands fairly quickly, because imagine, if
you will, that you and your family, your older siblings,
your mom and dad are working with you to customize
or to repair an a tractor, and depending on the
amount of work you do, then by the time you're finished,
(33:10):
you might be able to just get a actual car license.
That's That's one of the things that this writer points
out is that you know, you start these projects and
a lot of them will start it when they're you know,
fifteen sixteen by the time they're eighteen, you know, the
thing's done. It's time to get a real car. So
a lot of times, you know, these are just kind
of a toy that goes along with the regular license,
the real license. UM. Now, I guess that you know,
(33:32):
if if you're really smart about this, you may start
building one of these things, or you know, if you
if you can locate one and just buy it, that's great.
But if you want to build one, maybe you start
when you're thirteen, maybe fourteen years old and kind of
put the pieces together and then you have some time
and then when you hit sixteen, that would be the
smartest time related to get one of these, because of
the day you turn sixteen, you're able to get this
(33:53):
farm license or this tractor license. Um, that would be
a smart move, right, Yeah, I agree. And you know,
I got a couple two more quick little side notes,
and I guess and to this whole thing, UM, is
that you know, there was something similar going on here
in the United States during World War two, and uh
it was because we also had a shortage of of
(34:14):
farm implements. But we did have, um again, a lot
of you know, forward cars. We had model as, we
had model t s UM, and they actually did convert
tractor you know these into tractors as well. So there's
something here in the States that they called doodle bug tractors,
and doodle bug tractors are the just about the identical
thing to these. I mean, there's there's slight differences here
and there in the regulations, etcetera. But um, it's basically
(34:37):
just an engine, um, a truck axle, and any kind
of homemade body that you could throw together. And some
were actual tractors, some were more like, you know, more
car like I guess, um. And the last thing then
this is kind of just a complete side note. Um,
and we'll end with this. I was talking with my
mother this weekend and just I mentioned these a tractors
(34:59):
that we were going to be doing a show on
these eight tractors, and she says to me, you know,
my neighbor who was kind of a guy that liked
to tinker with a lot of things. Uh, this is
back in Wabash, Indiana, like in the late fifties, early sixties. Um,
he created this this vehicle and she had a name
for it. But it wasn't doodle bug tractor. It was
something else. It wasn't. There was a name that he
called it that he made up, I think, and I
(35:22):
can't remember the name. I'm gonna have to get that for,
you know, soon. But it basically looked like a like
a you know, harness racing and horse and horse racing.
How the harness racers stays on the back. It's almost
like a two wheeled wagon set up. Well, there was
an engine up front that had wheels and it was
driven and then at the back. It was almost like
this harness racing vehicle that was wooden that he had created.
(35:42):
And it was really just strictly for like on the
on the sidewalk type use and you could you could
haul around, you know, like three or four kids. The
guy was always driving. He was the driver, and it
was just a fun toy for the kids to mess
around with. And he was always driving. And maybe three
or four kids would be able to ride if there
were small and if it was you know, bigger kids,
two kids could write it um. And the cool thing
(36:04):
about this is, and this has got me really thinking.
He lived immediately next door to my grandmother who still
lives in the same house, and the houses are both
still there, and the garage is still there. He just
stored it in the back of the garage. Now the
house has changed hands once or twice in the past,
but it's family members. Now. I'm wondering if the next
time in town, if I go back there and ask
if I can just take a peek, if I'll see
(36:25):
the remnants of this thing, or if maybe it's the
entire vehicle is still stored in there. Because it's possible,
you have to, I know, I absolutely have to at
this point. So if anybody's heard of anything like, um,
you know, like these unusual vehicles like doodle bug tractors
or a tractors or whatever, this crazy uh you know,
harness racing thing the guy that built in Indiana and
(36:45):
the mid fifties. Um, if anybody has any crazy vehicles
like that that you know are loophole vehicles, please right
in or send us a photo of something like that,
because that's that's gold. Those are beautiful things that I mean,
if you're able to somehow find and Rea or those things,
that would be that would be really cool. It would
be a nice edition to your collection. Yeah, and if
(37:05):
that's too much work, you know, just take a picture.
Don't beat yourself up. Well, yeah, I mean, I guess
that was a tall order there, But all I meant was,
you know, just relay your stories and maybe a photo
or two if you've got one, because she didn't have
a single photo of this thing. Uh, your mom didn't know. No,
I'm gonna I'm gonna really tester my grandmother though about this.
I think it might be time to introduce yourself to
(37:25):
your mother's neighbors. Possibly. Yeah, that would be so cool.
But before we head out, Scott, um, do you want
to do one more thing? Of course? Okay, so our
one more thing I'm calling this one more thing instead
of listener mail um our listener Karen wrote into us
(37:46):
on Facebook and said, uh said, hey, look at this car.
I saw a dragon car. Now this car is Anybody
who is on our Facebook page can go check it out.
It's one of our or I guess one of our
public comment threads. And uh, this car is really cool man.
It's in the Dragon comparade. Dragon Con is a sci
(38:12):
fi fantasy um pop, how would I phrase it? So
you know what, let's leave it this way. Dragon Con
is a really cool convention held every year in our
own Atlanta, Georgia. It's a crazy weekend. It's a crazy weekend.
If you are going downtown, don't drive unless you're driving
in an awesome car like this. I don't know even
(38:33):
know what to how to describe this thing. It looks
like it has a joustam pole on the front. Is
this supposed to be just to look like like something
in particular bend? You know where this comes from? Uh? Yeah?
The car that Karen sent the picture of belongs to
her husband. She and he worked together to turn it
into a battle cruiser. Okay, it has wings, it has,
(38:54):
like I said, a joustam pole on the front, and
a lot of add ons. It looks like things are
and it's so modified. I don't even know what the
bass car. I'll have to really look at the shape
of it. Yeah, yeah, and I'll pay a better photo
for you too. Sorry man, but we had an interesting
little conversation about the various excellent kitted out cars and
modified cars that you can see at Dragon Con. It's
(39:16):
kind of like, remember we're talking about Burning Man. How
many amazing Burning Man cars? There are some amazing creations there.
You can see some really neat stuff there. So everybody
who's interested in this, let us know Karen said, thought
it might be fun to do a picture on geek
rides or an episode excuse me on geek ride. Not
a bad idea, that's a that's a really good idea,
(39:38):
not a bad idea at all. And I thought this
stuve telled well with our conversation about some brilliant homemade
vehicles such as a tractors and doodle bugs. You guys,
we're gonna go ahead and call call it a day,
declare victory on this podcast. Big thanks to Simon for
hipping us to something that I don't think either of
us had ever heard about. Now, I hadn't heard of
(39:59):
it until his Facebook suggestions, So thank you Simon and
her your excellent suggestions. Scott, let's do here from any
listeners who have some awesome photos or some awesome restorations,
have loophole vehicles or doodle bug tractors or whatever you've got.
I mean, just that crazy vehicle. I'm going to get
the name of it, Ben, I promise. Oh and also
(40:21):
thanks to ing Bar Hulstrom who wrote what who wrote
an excellent article on this on the tractor that's Simon
Hippus too. Yeah, that's the one we referenced earlier, And
if you want to see that article for yourself or
our conversation with Simon and Karen, you can check out
our Facebook page car Stuff hs W. You can drop
us a line on Twitter, make it short, they have
(40:41):
a pretty park character limit. Or if you want to
skip the social media entirely, you can write the Scott
and I at car Stuff at Discovery dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, This is
how Stuff Works dot com. Let us know what you think,
send an email to podcast how Stuff Works dot com.
(41:02):
Mmmm
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from how Stuff works dot Com. I everyone
to welcome to car Stuff. I'm Scott Benjamin and I'm
Ben Bullet and we've got a topic that is a
Facebook listeners suggestion today. Uh comes from Simon, and Simon
(00:23):
is from Oma in Northern Ireland. And Simon, thank you
for telling us how to pronounce that. Yeah, we never
would have never would have made it there. But um, anyways,
from Northern Ireland, and Simon says, there's something going on
in Sweden that maybe of interest to you. Uh, there's
this phenomenon of converting road cars into pickup trucks. And uh,
(00:44):
it's actually a little bit different than that. They're actually
converting road cars and pickup trucks into tractors, as we'll
find out, but legally speaking, the tractors, legally speaking their tractors.
But the idea is that kids from about I think
he said fifteen, but it's really sixteen can get on
the road without a license wroughtout a car license. Rather,
this is all stuff we're gonna we're gonna go into this.
(01:06):
We'll turn all this up in the episode. But uh,
they take some kind of sedan, like an old Volvo
or something like that. They cut out the back end
make it into what he calls a Swedish el Camino,
which I liked. And the real interesting thing is that
they restrict the speed of these vehicles to thirty kilometers
per hour, which is about eighteen miles per hour. I'm sorry, Yeah,
(01:27):
thirty kilometers which is around eighteen miles per hour? What
do you think of that? And I thought that's pretty interesting.
Let's maybe investigate this. Yes, so Simon, thank you for
writing in with this excellent suggestion. Um, we've interacted with
Simon a little bit on Twitter as well. Uh, it
turns out there is quite a story to the Swedish
(01:48):
a tractor. The the interesting thing here that we should
set out at the beginning, Um, why are these kids
driving these now or why why do they want to? Well,
the legal age for a driving license in Sweden is eighteen,
so there's this certain amount of time where they're not
(02:08):
allowed to drive a finger quotes car, but they can
drive a finger quote tractor. Yeah it's a farm equipment
or farm implement, and they get around this rule that way,
and so this becomes been what they call a loophole
vehicle and that you know, these these kids are these
adults who are creating these vehicles with these kids are
(02:29):
are creating these loophole vehicles that allow them to get
on the road, allow them to drive on the city
streets really and something that you know, or earlier and
you know, up to two years earlier than they normally would.
And I was starting to think of other loophole kind
of loophole esque vehicles that we've talked about, and immediately
three wheel cars come to mind. You know that they
(02:50):
they you know, have licensing, etcetera like a motorcycle. Um,
some of the micro and mini and bubble cars come
to mind, a few of them, not not all of them. Uh,
cycle cars of course, Um, mopeds came to mind, and
that that's sort of in a way, a lot of
those become loophole vehicles and that they stay to under
fifty ccs in order to avoid the motorcycle designation with
(03:11):
all the taxes and licensing that go along with that.
So you know, loophole vehicles are nothing new. Um but um,
I had never heard of these Swedish a tractors. And
it turns out, you know, he he says, that, you know,
Simon says, there's something going on in Sweden right now. Um, honestly, Ben,
this has been going on for and he didn't know.
(03:32):
I didn't know. This has been going on for like
seventy years. Yeah, let's time travel back, shall we, Scott
to the beginning of these uh, homemade tractors, which weren't
always called A tractors, no, no, no. The fact they
were the early versions of these things where actually called
I'm gonna go with EPA. How always say EPA, it's
(03:53):
e p A tractors and that stands for think be
called in heads priss a b uh unity price company.
This was open in the nineteen thirties. They sold cheap
products of varying quality according to the stuff we've read, Yeah,
commodity store, right and they said, it's kind of like
(04:14):
a uh you know, I hate to say the name
along with it now that you said cheap, but Sears
and Roebuck they sold a lot of things back in
the day. If you look at an old, old, old
Sears and Robot catalog, they sold everything from houses to
Crossley automobiles to you know, shirts and pants and you know,
anything else you wanted. Farm implements everything. Um, so that
(04:34):
it's kind of like the Swedish version of Sears and Roebuck,
but maybe on a lower level, you know, less quality maybe. Uh.
Now again we're we're being very careful because we don't
want to say offensive things about companies. But we've heard
it referred to as a general interest department store where
not everything is bad, but not everything is great, kind
(04:56):
of kind of what you might refer to as a
kmart thing. No offense came out, I'll just say, and
see you get into this hole when you start doing
that now. But the thing is that this, this is
a trend that started in Sweden before and I'll say
during World War Two. And the whole reason, the entire
reason that this thing began is because you got to remember,
at wartime there was actually a shortage of tractors and
(05:19):
farm equipment at the time in the in the country,
and uh, you know before um, you know, they were
able to get manufacturing back up and rebuild some of
these tractors and farm implements and things that they were missing.
What they did have a lot of was a lot
of Ford Model A vehicles and the Model A A trucks,
which are the commercial version, right, Yeah, the heavier trucks,
(05:41):
which can be recognized by the double wheels in the rear.
And one of the reasons that they used these vehicles,
as you I think you said, they had quite a
few of them around, which is always great when you're
talking spare parts. Yeah, and you would think like, well,
why didn't they just use the truck as you know,
as it said, why wouldn't they just use a you know,
(06:03):
model A truck, because we've seen them do some pretty
amazing things, right, um, you know, model even model ts,
we've seem do a pretty amazing things. They were turned
into these incredible farm machines where people would drive sawmills
with them. They would turn them into uh, you know,
snowmobile like vehicles, you know with skids on the front
and and belts in the back or you know, your
wheels in the back, but still able to drive through snow.
(06:24):
And you know, the thing is that they needed them
to haul things, They needed them to pull things. They
needed them for so many different reasons. And there were
there were laws on the record that said, you know,
we have to if if it's going to be used
as a farm equipment or registered as a farm farm equipment.
It's got to conform to these certain things. So you know,
we'll talk about some of these, uh, these requirements in
(06:45):
just a moment. But um, you know, the Swedish government
they actually at one point, you know, once we got
to the point where people are starting to build these
things which are like, you know, utility vehicles. I mean,
they've been likened to the Australia in utility vehicles like
the like the el Camino that Simon mentioned, right, Um,
But but these are more for farm youth strictly off
(07:08):
road use and then occasionally on road to haul things
back and forth from the barn, you know, to the
main house or whatever. But they weren't really intended to
be road cruisers or anything like that. Um. And the
Swedish government decided that they were going to just after
the war, they were going to kind of regulate these
things out. They were gonna say, like, we see what
they're doing here, but we don't want them on a roads.
(07:29):
We're gonna we're gonna get rid of them. Right And
when they wanted to phase them out after they had
already become fairly common, I think we can we can
say that with a huge degree of certain Yeah, and
there's some rules. I mean I mentioned rules. I mean
it just I don't know if you had the rules
of a body on the frame. Uh, maximal wheelbase of
(07:50):
two hundred centimeters. It's about seven ft unsprung rear axle,
which is important later. Yeah, that means that means the
axles attached directly to the and a ten to one
gear ratio. Okay, so that's a very high gear. I
mean that's a I'm sorry, a low your ratio and
that um, that's kind of like you know what you
would expect a garden tractor or something like that to have,
(08:10):
you know, stump pulling type type power. So it's very
very low speed vehicle. Really. Um. Now, when the Swedish
government wanted to regulate these things will almost out of
out of existence because they didn't quite succeed, as we'll
find out again, still called EPA tractors, right, and they
have previously been called built tractors at one point that
(08:32):
I do need to make your scott. A tractor in
Swedish terminology, uh doesn't always have to be a car.
It can sometimes be a truck or bus that's been
converted to agricultural machinery. Okay, got it. Okay, so that
you know that's gonna come up in just a moment
with the new rules, uh for for you know, the
modern version of this. But at the time, I remember,
(08:54):
this is just post World War two. Now, another vehicle
that they had that that even after the government said
we're gonna make these changes to this thing that you
have to conform to in order to to make these tractors. Um,
one vehicle that was very close to uh to um,
I don't know, already having some of the characteristics that
they needed for this vehicle. I think I know when
(09:16):
you're talking. It was a Volvo, right, yeah, the Volvo Duet,
Is that correct? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, the Volvo Duet
had uh this fortunate perfect storm thing for any would
be trackdoor builder, because not only did it confirm to
some of the changing regulations, I believe the majority of
the changing regulations, but it also was a common vehicle
(09:38):
in Sweden at the time, just like the Model A. Yes,
they had lots and lots of of these Volvo vehicles around,
of several different types really, but the Duet, I guess,
was one that was commonly modified. UM. Now you'll notice
also that a lot of these what they call old
school app A tractors. You'll see that a lot of
them a D from from Volvo vehicles. Um. But then
(10:01):
let's jump ahead now, I guess, yeah, let's dump um.
So let's jump ahead to maybe the I guess in
the sixties there was kind of still this movement on,
you know that they're going to kind of do something
with them, But it wasn't until the mid seventies when
the government of the Swedish government actually wanted to phase
out all of the EPI tractors again. And the reason
they had done this, I'm just gonna go back just
(10:21):
a couple of years. The reason they had done this
was that the EPI tractors were starting to I mean,
they were still around, but they weren't as prominent in
the sort of the sixties era until some young people
discovered that you could use a tractor to get around
(10:43):
the eighteen and over driving band, and then they became
more and more popular. And this leads to what we're
talking about in I think it's thirty one March, So
March thirty one, nineteen, EPI tractors were going to be banned,
and then the Republic. There was a public outcry because
(11:03):
the public in general. Now I know a lot of
people thought these things are a menace on the road.
You know, they're they're too slow there whatever we find out,
but um, the public really didn't want to give up
their epic tractors, and they're just they realize that these
are too handy. I mean, not only does allow someone
who's you know, younger than the driving age to drive, uh,
you know, two years prior to when they're able to
(11:26):
normally drive an automobile. Um, it also is something a
vehicle that really it had some you know, actual utilitarian use,
I guess. I mean it was actually a vehicle that
they were using. You know, they had a purpose. Um,
they weren't just you know, hot rods at this point.
So you know, they're they're actually a handy vehicle to
have around. And people thought, well, do we really want
(11:47):
to do without them from this point forward? Yeah, and
let's also keep them on. Maybe this is a little
bit more of a qualitative point. The farmers in question
and the agricultural workers in question also we're probably close
to these vehicles because not only did they work with
them every day, but they customized and modified these vehicles
(12:08):
on their own. Yeah, these were definitely their cars. This
may be a good point for, you know, a point
for someone to go and take a look at what
an a tractor looks like, because after, you know, anything
prior to let's say, the mid seventies was called an
EPI tractor. Anything after the nineteen seventies is called an
A tractor. And I'm not sure why they came up
with the A tractor. Did you hear any origin of
(12:29):
the name A tractor in any way? Well, I I
know that don't don't get mad fans of EPA, but
from a lot of the stuff that I've read, the
EPI reputation became so bad that they dropped the name
because like people didn't want to call it an EPI tractor.
But really, yeah, the public didn't. UM didn't apparently love
(12:53):
EPI that much. They started to get a bad reputation.
But I want to make sure that this is underlines
here that reputation for the store in no way reflects
on the tractors themselves, which are great pieces of machines. Oh, absolutely,
because each one is individual. Um. Of course we mentioned
that they're they're registered as farm equipment you know, these
(13:13):
aren't produced anywhere. These are these are homegrown vehicles. Really, Um,
someone is taking a vehicle and modifying it in a way.
Now that that creates an a tractor out of an
existing vehicle. Uh, so you know there's nothing there's nowhere
you can go and buy one of these that you
know is a is a clone of one that you
see somewhere else in town. Um, these are all individual vehicles.
(13:34):
Now there's a bunch of new things here that we
need to get to, regulations, regulations that um, you know,
the the government again in the mid seventies said, you
know these are this is something you're gonna have to
adhere to. And if, boy, if you can't do it,
then we're just not gonna have to not gonna have
any of these tractors anymore on our roads. And so
they kind of let loose with this this long list
(13:56):
of things that that made it seemingly pretty difficult to
create a tractor that would be roadworthy. Uh you know that,
let's get into the list and see if you can
make up your own mind if like maybe this would
be something that would be challenging to you to build
a vehicle that would adhere to this or if it's easy. Okay,
that's a that's a great point to start from. So
(14:17):
this is where we hit number one, the top speed
that Simon mentioned earlier, which is eighteen miles per hour
thirty kilometers an hour, not exactly burning up the raceway. Okay, yep,
they've but they did. They did drop the frame requirement
and they also dropped the wheelbase requisite. So yeah, exactly.
So the wheelbase is you know, no longer has to
(14:37):
be seven ft. It could be anything really, but the
frame requirement thing, they they said that, um, you know,
it doesn't have normally have to be or doesn't now
have to be a frame on top of our rather
a body on top of a frame. But that made
unibody vehicles available for donor vehicles, and that led to
you know, some of the modern Volvo cars being used again,
(14:58):
so people are using even current a Volvo cars as
a tractors. Again. Um, but I've probably given too much away.
So there's also what the something but the axle right, yeah, yeah,
the axles don't have to be unsprung and there's no
set axle ratio. There is, however, requirement for a token
truck bed. Yeah. Now, this is fun. Have you seen
(15:20):
the photos of this man? Yeah, yeah, it's uh, it
can't be larger than one point two five square meal. Okay,
now that's now for anybody else who doesn't understand or
it doesn't you know, quite get the meter thing um
about thirteen and a half square feet if you want
to look at it that way. I'm total And you know,
what is that cute? It may be cuic uh that
made that might be a type in the article, but
(15:41):
that's not that's not too bad. It's it's not very big.
If you look at the photo, look at the look
at the image of any of these eight tractors, and
they've had a tiny, tiny little bed on the back.
And the funny thing is, if it was a truck,
it's completely covered except for this little it's almost like
a cube, a little small cute and you wouldn't be
able to carry anything in it, really, I mean, it
(16:03):
just seems like it's a it's there for show only.
But but the point is that you have to render
the rest of the truck bed unusable except for uh
that one point to five square meters, And it just
seems so silly. I mean, you look at these these
big truck beds that they have you know, in small
pickup or whatever, and really it's just a tiny little box.
(16:23):
And part of this goes back into a an ongoing debate,
which is why were the regulations phrased this way. Was
there a legitimate concern about the size of truck beds
or was some regulatory entity trying to make a tractors undesirable?
(16:43):
It was probably at the second one there and uh,
and the other thing is that you know, if you
have a car, you've got to add a truck bed
to it, and that becomes a quite a task for
somebody who's not you know, adapt at welding and modification
and manifabrication fabrications. So you know, this is another challenge
for for the builders. And that's where the sport you'd
vehicle that we mentioned earlier, you know, the the Australian
(17:04):
utility vehicles that they have still uh, the El Camino
looking vehicles, you know, that comes in. But the but
the beds are very very small. So even in a
car you've got something, you know, they have to make
a bed and then it has to be a certain dimension. Um.
The other thing is they have to have a triangle
on the back of the vehicle, but no license plate.
Now the triangle is like what you'd see on an
Amish buggy or something like that. Moving vehicle or if
(17:27):
a semi truck breaks down. They put them out by
the road, the very big orange reflective triangles. What does
it indicate, Oh, I just slow, Yeah, I mean it
has it's a hazard. It's a watch out. Yes, I
mean that, you know me exactly, like if somebody is approaching,
you know this is obviously a slow vehicle. I think
that's what probably exactly why the Amish have it on
(17:48):
the back of their vehicle, for for visibility and just
to let people know this is not a motorized vehicle.
I've seen it on the back of hay wagons and
things like that too. Yeah, and you are right that
it is a sign put out when a truck driver,
for instance, has a breakdown. You can also put it
out if you're in a normal cars, sedan or something
(18:09):
that breaks down, change an attire or something like that. Um.
A couple other rules here, they still have a few
of them here. Um Uh. They're not to be used
for personal transport. Now, this is a tricky one. Yeah,
people get around this one of course, just like they do, um,
you know the official designation for historic vehicles. You know,
when people have historic plates on their car, they're not
(18:31):
supposed to be used for anything other than like parade
activities and uh, I think it's to and from repair
shops right right, Yes, So you can go to a
car show, you can participate in a parade or I
think a charity event, club events, things like that, but
you're not supposed to be just driving it to and
from work every day because of you know the plate restriction.
Well these are these are like you know, similar in
(18:53):
that way, and that you're not supposed to use it
for personal transportation. However, you know everybody does asterix. This
also brings us to another another part of this. It
was very interesting to me, so thirty kilometers now are
e two miles an hour? That's the limit, the legal limit. However,
if you check on some of the forums about a tractors,
(19:17):
if you check on some of the other information, you'll
see a lot of people saying that this rule is
not widely followed, and even even some people on the
forums disagree about what the top speech should be. Is
it thirty or is it forty. I'm fairly certain it's thirty.
I bet it's thirty. And but the problem is, like
even the author of this article that Simon sent us, uh,
(19:39):
you know, on on a tractors, Um, it says that
the author says he's never seen one uh that can
go under fifty or they can they can't. I'm sure
it's sorry. They can't exceed fifty kilometers per hour, which
is about what thirty one something like that. Um, okay.
And they're also not for trans transporting goods. Um, that's
(20:00):
something this This is really tricky in that you know,
it's got this truck bed, so it's it's meant to
haul something, right if that's for transporting goods. So what
they're saying here is that, UM, I guess maybe a
way to describe this is that if the vehicle has
three seats abreast, like a like an old pickup truck,
would you know, like a ben a bench seat, let's say,
versus two bucket seats or two chair type seats. Um,
(20:23):
that's okay, you can you can leave it like that,
but only if the original vehicles set up that way
prior to the conversion. So you know, you can't create
you can't put a bench seat in a vehicle that
didn't have a bench seat and say that you know
it carries three people. But like large trucks or old
pickup trucks, that's fine. Uh. There's also no second role
for passengers allowed. Um. And you can't carry any goods
(20:46):
or any kind of other items in the back there.
That the the the extra space behind the front seats
is not for storage of anything. You can't have a
second role for passengers. You can't have storage for anything.
You can't carry anything in that's that's the strict rule. Uh.
So vans, big cars, crew cab things like that. Um,
(21:07):
anything behind the front seats has to be removed and
just gutted. And that's why a lot of them end
up just chopping the vehicle off at that point, which
is why these can look very strange to someone who's
not not ready for the site. You you see what
looks like the front half of a Model A and
then it's chopped. There's still back wheels there, but there's
(21:28):
this tiny little, tiny, tiny bed, tiny little bit. And uh,
I wanted to I'm sorry, I wanted to go back
and correct some of the things I said. I don't
know exactly why. I haven't found exactly why they're called
a tractors. I'm gonna dig in deeper and look into that. However,
we are correct, that's that is the slow moving sign. Uh.
(21:49):
And it was made mandatory on January one, very good.
Before then it was volunteering. I have some quick research. Well,
I have the I have my I have my know
it's typed out. But then I got I hate to
admit it, Scott, I got sucked into looking at these
very interesting, like striking pictures of these vehicles. You know
(22:10):
what kind of get just two more actually, just one
more little thing. Um. There's also a toe hitch, which
is mandatory. So they all have to have a toe
hitch on the back, because a tractor would have a
toe hitch on the back for wagons whatever it's towing
farm other farm implements as well. Now you know what
I agree with you on, and that's just about it
for the New World. But I agree with you completely
on looking at these things. It's not at all what
(22:31):
you would expect. Now we're talking about tractors, and you
would think that, you know, the kind of variety like
maybe you'd see out on the farm, like the John
Deer tractors, or you can think of maybe the kind
that you used to mow your yard, you know, the
I don't know, the Sears craftsman variety that's very very
small boxing. You know, just a you know, four four
stroke engine under the hood and maybe a headlight or too,
(22:53):
you know, if you're fancy, maybe maybe it's something you
just parking the shed, you know, that type of thing.
But this is nothing like this. These these look like
hot rods. Yeah, a lot. And just like the original
name epic tractor implies, there is a wide range of
let's let's call it, uh aesthetics, because we've got You've
(23:15):
got some that look just amazing like you would see
him in a car show. Especially remember this, uh, this
one right here with really big back wheels. There's a
dragster looking one that in this article that's uh. If
you go on our Facebook, you can find this conversation
that we had with Simon and uh and look up
the article. UM, it's it's pretty interesting. Or you can
(23:36):
just search for this article if you like. I mean,
it's called the history of the Swedish a tractor and
it's got several great photos. I mean, some of these
are beautiful vehicles really, um, and you'll find that, you know,
a lot of them are are kind of done up
in hot rod fashion instead of you know, just getting
you know, from home to the town. You know that
that that type of vehicle, not an a two B
transportation type vehicle, but more like the style of getting there. Right. Yes,
(24:01):
if you had a let's say, sixteen year old and
lived in a place for driving age was eighteen, would
you be fun with your kid driving an a tractor?
This is a tough question. It's a tough question out
here in the States driving ages sixteen ballpark. I mean
you get your learners permitting all that, right, I mean,
(24:21):
there's I know, the process and I um boy, this
is a tough one because these are so restricted in
what they allow. Um. I don't know. It's kind of
a homemade vehicle though, and I wouldn't be too confident
about that. I think maybe that would be the only
thing that would hold me back is that you're putting
your kid out there on the road in a vehicle
that can only travel eighteen miles per hour. Supposedly other
(24:43):
vehicles are traveling around that vehicle a lot faster. That
may be a danger um again, the home homemade aspect
would be a potential concern um. Of course, then you
can go the other way with that, you can make
it overly safe. Really, boy, I don't know, ben, I
I think uh, I don't think I would. Well, in
(25:04):
the defense of the people who have made this decision,
we do need to point out that a lot of
times these vehicles are have already been in existence in
the family, you know, so they're reliable, they're in tingered
with hand me downs. Yeah, um, if we want to
call him that. And also that I think you make
an excellent point about the speed, because I get the
(25:25):
sense that a lot of these are in more rural communities. Yeah,
and you know, it's it's so handy for someone to
be able to say to their their son or daughter
who is sixteen, Uh, you know, can you please run
down to the feed jop And I need I need
six you know whatever, I need six bales of that
of this, hey or whatever. I need bags of something,
(25:46):
you know, some type of feed um or whatever it
happens to be. However, I think that a lot of
these are just being used for like kids cruising, which
I think is so cool. I mean maybe I'm on
the different, different side of this because I think it
if I had a kid, I would be the coolest
dad ever for being able to say, you know, I
(26:06):
know you can't drive till you're eighteen. I know you
can't drive a car. I mean, yeah, that's right. Yeah,
it's like a It's like a bigger kid, go card.
I guess right, Yeah, maybe i'd be a better uncle.
Now let's get back to this though, because the purpose
of all these rules. Now we just read you that
long list of rules to that break, remember that that,
um we're meant really and this is the main purpose.
(26:27):
You gotta remember, the Swedish government is trying to make
these vehicles unattractive to anyone. They're trying to say, you know,
you've got to do this, this and this and um all,
by the way, we've got this, this and this also
you have to do Yeah. So they're trying to make
it inconvenient. Yeah, exactly. Inconvenient is probably the best way
to say it, but very very unappealing or unattractive. Now,
what that did really was make people say, you know what,
(26:51):
I'm going to build a car that that conforms to
your standards. Yet it is still something that I want
to drive, something that's cool, or something I can put
my kid in that will be will be proud of together,
and I want to point out that this reminds me
so much of some of the engineering at Formula one.
And oh yeah, so it becomes a challenge for a
lot of these people. You know that they say, I'm
(27:11):
gonna I'm gonna do this whether you want to really
want me to or not. I can see that you
don't want me to without just outright banning the vehicles. Um,
so you know, make the rules as tough as you can.
I'm gonna do my best to sort through all them
and make something, make something out of this. Yeah. And
when we say, by the way, guys, well we we
say that there was an attempt to ban them completely
(27:33):
and it failed due to public uproar. We do mean
public uproar. There were protests, there were there was a
petition with almost seven thousand people signed up. That's the
reason that the Swedish government did not completely banned them,
but instead tried this a little sneakier way, a little
more passive aggressive way of just saying, well, okay, if
(27:55):
we can't make him illegal, will make him stink. And
you know what the thing is now that we we've
mentioned this loophole vehicle, right that you know, this is
what has become, and we talked about the age and
all that. It's not just for kids though it's in fact,
I guess we'll find out that right now that you know,
it's not strictly people between the age of sixteen and
eighteen that are driving these things. These also have use
(28:19):
for old farmers who still continue to use these vehicles,
you know, maybe even the ones that you know are
you know, ballpark World War two vehicles and possibly some
new ones. You know, because a lot of these guys
are very very handy in the workshop. You know, they're
able to weld very well and uh and create things.
So you know, you'd be surprised what old farmers can
turn out of a barn. These are mcge trunks, yeah, exactly. Now, Also,
(28:41):
this is interesting. I don't know if I like this
too much. People who have had their their licenses revoked
due to drunk driving or you know, for whatever reason.
But maybe they've racked up a numerous speeding or reckless
driving people, People who are not allowed to have an
actual driving license for an actual car can still get
(29:06):
around it. Also, the taxes and insurance are much lower, yeah,
extremely low on these things because their farm implements their tractors.
So you know, it's very very low because how much
you know, how much insurance do you have to carry
on something that really is supposed to be sitting in
a barn or out in a field or something like
that on you know, private property, off road use doesn't
(29:27):
really have to have a lot of of UM insurance
carried along with that because you're not truly supposed to
be interacting with with other drivers on the road all
that much, if at all, which could make this and
I think, I see what you're seeing where you're going, Scott,
This could make it a very dangerous perfect storm because
then we could have someone who is a dangerous driver
(29:50):
UM back on the road and having I don't know,
more money to spend on crime. Well maybe I don't
know like that, but you know what, sometimes and I've
seen this in my past, Ben, I know that, uh man,
this is going back to high school days. But there
was a guy, an older guy. I didn't even know
who he was, but you know, I had worked at
(30:10):
this hardware store and this guy would work somewhere nearby
in the same strip mall area, and uh, I was
at the hardware store all the time, and I'd see
this guy ride by on his moped. And you know,
one of the older guys that worked with me said,
you know, that guy lost his license two years ago,
uh for drunk driving, after you know X number of offenses.
He just completely lost the license of life. And the
(30:32):
guy would use a moped for you know, as long
as he possibly could, from you know, spring until fall,
you know, when the snow hit um to get around
town because he couldn't get a driver's license. However, he
could get a moped license at the time. Now, I
don't know if it's changed or not, but that's the
reason that this you know, I don't know if he
was in this. He seemed old to me, but he
may have been like, you know, thirties four exactly. Yeah,
(30:55):
so he was in his thirties or forties. And I
was wondering why this guy is using a moped to
get around town. And you know, I saw him a
good distance from you know, where we worked occasionally, so
I know that, you know, this is his main method
of transportation. I was kind of curious about it, and
that's what I asked and he told me so. I
have to say, though, while while we are showing the
maybe the darker side of this, I'm fairly convinced from
(31:16):
what we read that this is not the primary use
of a tractors. I really do think they're more for
loophole cars for young adults and then for legitimate farm
use purposes. Although now what's interesting is that shortage of
quote unquote real tractors UH from World War Two is
(31:39):
no longer in business. You can get a real tractor,
it no longer exists, but people continue to build a
tractors and of course, you know, was despite the Swedish
government's best efforts, you know, to to thwart that. Um.
What what's really interesting maybe in this whole thing is
that a lot of people in uh, you know, the
car culture and in Sweden see this as kind of
a star earting point for them in their hot rotting
(32:02):
or they're customizing. Um. You know. So so when you
look at the pictures that you know, follow along with
these the if you if you look up a tractors,
you'll see these, um a lot of them do have
a hot rod look to them. You know, they're they're
completely slammed to the ground. I mean they're an inch
off the ground. A lot of them have enormous rear tires,
look like drag cars. Um, you know, air cleaners sticking
out of the hood, candy apple paint jobs. Um. Some
(32:24):
of them are are really striking. Some of them are
really beautiful, Others are more utilitarian looking. Others have you know,
rough body work. They just haven't had the time and
effort put into them that some of the others have.
And that I'm glad you made that point that this
is a great sort of feeder for the customizing scene.
And one thing that we should also emphasize is that
(32:47):
these vehicles can change hands fairly quickly, because imagine, if
you will, that you and your family, your older siblings,
your mom and dad are working with you to customize
or to repair an a tractor, and depending on the
amount of work you do, then by the time you're finished,
(33:10):
you might be able to just get a actual car license.
That's That's one of the things that this writer points
out is that you know, you start these projects and
a lot of them will start it when they're you know,
fifteen sixteen by the time they're eighteen, you know, the
thing's done. It's time to get a real car. So
a lot of times, you know, these are just kind
of a toy that goes along with the regular license,
the real license. UM. Now, I guess that you know,
(33:32):
if if you're really smart about this, you may start
building one of these things, or you know, if you
if you can locate one and just buy it, that's great.
But if you want to build one, maybe you start
when you're thirteen, maybe fourteen years old and kind of
put the pieces together and then you have some time
and then when you hit sixteen, that would be the
smartest time related to get one of these, because of
the day you turn sixteen, you're able to get this
(33:53):
farm license or this tractor license. Um, that would be
a smart move, right, Yeah, I agree. And you know,
I got a couple two more quick little side notes,
and I guess and to this whole thing, UM, is
that you know, there was something similar going on here
in the United States during World War two, and uh
it was because we also had a shortage of of
(34:14):
farm implements. But we did have, um again, a lot
of you know, forward cars. We had model as, we
had model t s UM, and they actually did convert
tractor you know these into tractors as well. So there's
something here in the States that they called doodle bug tractors,
and doodle bug tractors are the just about the identical
thing to these. I mean, there's there's slight differences here
and there in the regulations, etcetera. But um, it's basically
(34:37):
just an engine, um, a truck axle, and any kind
of homemade body that you could throw together. And some
were actual tractors, some were more like, you know, more
car like I guess, um. And the last thing then
this is kind of just a complete side note. Um,
and we'll end with this. I was talking with my
mother this weekend and just I mentioned these a tractors
(34:59):
that we were going to be doing a show on
these eight tractors, and she says to me, you know,
my neighbor who was kind of a guy that liked
to tinker with a lot of things. Uh, this is
back in Wabash, Indiana, like in the late fifties, early sixties. Um,
he created this this vehicle and she had a name
for it. But it wasn't doodle bug tractor. It was
something else. It wasn't. There was a name that he
called it that he made up, I think, and I
(35:22):
can't remember the name. I'm gonna have to get that for,
you know, soon. But it basically looked like a like
a you know, harness racing and horse and horse racing.
How the harness racers stays on the back. It's almost
like a two wheeled wagon set up. Well, there was
an engine up front that had wheels and it was
driven and then at the back. It was almost like
this harness racing vehicle that was wooden that he had created.
(35:42):
And it was really just strictly for like on the
on the sidewalk type use and you could you could
haul around, you know, like three or four kids. The
guy was always driving. He was the driver, and it
was just a fun toy for the kids to mess
around with. And he was always driving. And maybe three
or four kids would be able to ride if there
were small and if it was you know, bigger kids,
two kids could write it um. And the cool thing
(36:04):
about this is, and this has got me really thinking.
He lived immediately next door to my grandmother who still
lives in the same house, and the houses are both
still there, and the garage is still there. He just
stored it in the back of the garage. Now the
house has changed hands once or twice in the past,
but it's family members. Now. I'm wondering if the next
time in town, if I go back there and ask
if I can just take a peek, if I'll see
(36:25):
the remnants of this thing, or if maybe it's the
entire vehicle is still stored in there. Because it's possible,
you have to, I know, I absolutely have to at
this point. So if anybody's heard of anything like, um,
you know, like these unusual vehicles like doodle bug tractors
or a tractors or whatever, this crazy uh you know,
harness racing thing the guy that built in Indiana and
(36:45):
the mid fifties. Um, if anybody has any crazy vehicles
like that that you know are loophole vehicles, please right
in or send us a photo of something like that,
because that's that's gold. Those are beautiful things that I mean,
if you're able to somehow find and Rea or those things,
that would be that would be really cool. It would
be a nice edition to your collection. Yeah, and if
(37:05):
that's too much work, you know, just take a picture.
Don't beat yourself up. Well, yeah, I mean, I guess
that was a tall order there, But all I meant was,
you know, just relay your stories and maybe a photo
or two if you've got one, because she didn't have
a single photo of this thing. Uh, your mom didn't know. No,
I'm gonna I'm gonna really tester my grandmother though about this.
I think it might be time to introduce yourself to
(37:25):
your mother's neighbors. Possibly. Yeah, that would be so cool.
But before we head out, Scott, um, do you want
to do one more thing? Of course? Okay, so our
one more thing I'm calling this one more thing instead
of listener mail um our listener Karen wrote into us
(37:46):
on Facebook and said, uh said, hey, look at this car.
I saw a dragon car. Now this car is Anybody
who is on our Facebook page can go check it out.
It's one of our or I guess one of our
public comment threads. And uh, this car is really cool man.
It's in the Dragon comparade. Dragon Con is a sci
(38:12):
fi fantasy um pop, how would I phrase it? So
you know what, let's leave it this way. Dragon Con
is a really cool convention held every year in our
own Atlanta, Georgia. It's a crazy weekend. It's a crazy weekend.
If you are going downtown, don't drive unless you're driving
in an awesome car like this. I don't know even
(38:33):
know what to how to describe this thing. It looks
like it has a joustam pole on the front. Is
this supposed to be just to look like like something
in particular bend? You know where this comes from? Uh? Yeah?
The car that Karen sent the picture of belongs to
her husband. She and he worked together to turn it
into a battle cruiser. Okay, it has wings, it has,
(38:54):
like I said, a joustam pole on the front, and
a lot of add ons. It looks like things are
and it's so modified. I don't even know what the
bass car. I'll have to really look at the shape
of it. Yeah, yeah, and I'll pay a better photo
for you too. Sorry man, but we had an interesting
little conversation about the various excellent kitted out cars and
modified cars that you can see at Dragon Con. It's
(39:16):
kind of like, remember we're talking about Burning Man. How
many amazing Burning Man cars? There are some amazing creations there.
You can see some really neat stuff there. So everybody
who's interested in this, let us know Karen said, thought
it might be fun to do a picture on geek
rides or an episode excuse me on geek ride. Not
a bad idea, that's a that's a really good idea,
(39:38):
not a bad idea at all. And I thought this
stuve telled well with our conversation about some brilliant homemade
vehicles such as a tractors and doodle bugs. You guys,
we're gonna go ahead and call call it a day,
declare victory on this podcast. Big thanks to Simon for
hipping us to something that I don't think either of
us had ever heard about. Now, I hadn't heard of
(39:59):
it until his Facebook suggestions, So thank you Simon and
her your excellent suggestions. Scott, let's do here from any
listeners who have some awesome photos or some awesome restorations,
have loophole vehicles or doodle bug tractors or whatever you've got.
I mean, just that crazy vehicle. I'm going to get
the name of it, Ben, I promise. Oh and also
(40:21):
thanks to ing Bar Hulstrom who wrote what who wrote
an excellent article on this on the tractor that's Simon
Hippus too. Yeah, that's the one we referenced earlier, And
if you want to see that article for yourself or
our conversation with Simon and Karen, you can check out
our Facebook page car Stuff hs W. You can drop
us a line on Twitter, make it short, they have
(40:41):
a pretty park character limit. Or if you want to
skip the social media entirely, you can write the Scott
and I at car Stuff at Discovery dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, This is
how Stuff Works dot com. Let us know what you think,
send an email to podcast how Stuff Works dot com.
(41:02):
Mmmm
CarStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Scott Benjamin
Ben Bowlin
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