Rick Woodbury claims he has created a car that might solve the world’s traffic congestion problems. Rick from Spokane, Washington USA, is the president, founder and sole employee of ‘Commuter Cars.’ The carmaker’s flagship model is the 2005 super slim two-seater Tango T600, a high-performance electric car that preceded Tesla. Rick told Ridiculous Rides: “I started this company 21 years ago – it was based on an idea that I came up with in 1982.” He was inspired by the shocking traffic congestion he had to face on a daily basis.
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00:00The coolest feature to me is that it can get through traffic faster than any car in history.
00:06We get so many reactions from people watching it, it's amazing.
00:12Hi, I'm Rick Woodbury. I'm president and founder of Commuter Cars.
00:18I started this company 21 years ago.
00:24It was based on an idea that I came up with in 1982.
00:30I used to drive a Porsche from Beverly Hills to Hermosa Beach every day,
00:34and the traffic was horrendous.
00:36And I noticed that everybody around me was a single occupant in a car,
00:39taking up a whole lane.
00:41So I thought, everybody wants to get from point A to point B efficiently.
00:44And in cities like Los Angeles, there's really no centre, there's no hub,
00:48it's just everybody goes everywhere.
00:52I don't think there's any other answer except doubling lane capacity.
00:55This is the Tango Car, a super-slim electric vehicle
00:58that has created Rick's answer to congested city driving.
01:00Well, the coolest feature to me is that it can get through traffic faster than any car in history.
01:05Same width as a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
01:08You just come up to a stoplight,
01:10but instead of waiting in line behind all the other cars,
01:12you just go right up the line in between and you filter.
01:16On the inside, well, it's very comfortable.
01:19You're right in the centre of the car.
01:21You're on the driver's side on both sides, so it's very convenient.
01:26You look out either window, you've got better visibility,
01:30you can see exactly what's happening around you.
01:32You've got better visibility than any car I've ever had.
01:34You can fit two people.
01:36This has a Momo steering wheel.
01:38This is actually used by race cars, the Motec Dash.
01:41Four-point shoulder harness.
01:42The pilots of commercial aircraft use these exact harnesses.
01:46With a comfortable and easy-to-drive interior,
01:48what is it like to drive a car like this?
01:52It handles really well.
01:53We know it has a super low centre of gravity,
01:55being that it has a dry-sump engine that's opposed,
01:59so it's got a lower centre of gravity than just about any other car.
02:02I've had it up to 120 miles an hour,
02:04so the length is 102 inches, the same width of a semi-truck,
02:08so it can park perpendicular to the curb.
02:16This is the chassis, and this is the roll cage
02:20that is certified by FIA for a 200-mile-an-hour race car.
02:24There's about four times more impact protection here
02:26than there is in a standard production car.
02:29To me, this car is safer than any other car on the road
02:32because it can avoid accidents better than any other car.
02:34This has the same rollover threshold as a 911 Porsche.
02:37It turns instantly, unlike a motorcycle,
02:40which has to counter-steer before it can turn to avoid a collision.
02:43The Tango debuted in 2005,
02:45and after actor George Clooney bought one,
02:47the car became a runaway success.
02:51Due to the nature of the build,
02:53the company can only produce a certain amount.
02:55It took ten employees about three years to get nine-and-a-half cars built,
02:59and this is number ten.
03:01It's been quite a few more years, but also it's a lot more complicated.
03:05We've spent a couple of years just developing the new lithium pack for this one,
03:10but there have been constant upgrades over the years
03:13just to get the lithium batteries and the management systems to handle them.
03:17This is the car that we sold to a customer in Perth, Australia,
03:21and it's in the process of assembly,
03:26but mostly it's waiting on completion of the battery pack.
03:28The battery box is here.
03:30The whole bottom of the car is battery.
03:32There's 90 kilowatt-hours of battery in there,
03:35which will give us about 300 miles of range.
03:38With all the work needed to create these slender vehicles,
03:40the production costs can't be that cheap.
03:42These cars have cost an average of $420,000 each to build.
03:46And unsurprisingly, out on the road, this car gets a lot of attention.
03:55Hi, sure, of course.
03:58This is so cool that you got this done.
04:00I'm so impressed with you. That's amazing.
04:02We get so many reactions from people watching it. It's amazing.
04:05Sometimes we have two people, both the driver and a passenger,
04:08both photographing the car as we're going down the highway.
04:11It grabs a lot of attention.