Unique 3-Wheel Bonning Roadster (AU)

Press Release

Brings Mean And Green Together

A unique, Australian-built sports car will prove that being green need be no barrier to high performance when it appears at the Melbourne International Motor Show.

The Bonning Roadster delivers supercar performance and true sports car character in a compact three-wheeled economy car. It is being developed with a view to consuming not just a miserly amount of petrol but also alternative fuels such as hydrogen and methanol derived from household waste.

Weighing just 400kg - half the weight of the smallest hatchback - the 90 kW Bonning has phenomenal acceleration and a top speed around 200 km/h. It is the brainchild of Queensland automotive designer and oil painter Brad Bonning, who developed it from a pedal-powered car he had produced for driver training.

The key to the car's outstanding performance and handling is as old as motoring - light weight. The combination of an aluminium two-seater body and a powerful, motorcycle-derived engine has produced a vehicle which weighs little more than a large motorcycle.

For many people, the Bonning's most remarkable feature is not its fuel or its performance but its eye-catching minimalist bodywork. The styling and the chassis engineering are the product of Brad Bonning's intuitive engineering and fabrication skills, and the unpainted aluminium panels are testament to his high standards.

Detail refinements have been added to the Roadster since it first turned a wheel a bit over a year ago, and the prototype is being fitted with lights and other equipment needed for registration as a road car.

In addition to its starring role at the Melbourne Motor Show, it will be a special attraction two days earlier in the Motor Show Cavalcade at Federation Square on Wednesday 28 February.