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    BICYCLE
    November 20, 1866 - U.S.A.

    The first U.S. patent on a rotary crank bicycle was issued to Pierre Lallemont of Paris, France (No. 59,915). With pedals applied directly to the front wheel, this so called velocipede ("fast foot") was a major advance on the old hobby horse bicycle that had to be pushed with the feet. It soon came to be known as "the bone shaker" because being made of stiff materials, straight angles and steel wheels, it gave a stiff ride over the cobblestone roads of the day. Soon indoor riding academies, similar to roller rinks, could be found in large cities. He rode on it from Ansonia, Conn. to the green at New Haven, Conn.

    SOLAR-POWERED FLIGHT
    November 20, 1980 - English Channel

    Steve Ptacek in Solar Challenger piloted its first solar-powered flight. The aircraft was designed and built by AeroVironment, Inc. (founded in 1971 by ultra-light airplane innovator, Dr. Paul MacCready). An earlier, 71-ft wingspan, solar-powered design, the Gossamer Penguin, after test flights, flew about 1.95 miles at a public demonstration on 7 Aug 1980. Solar Challenger built upon this experience to be a piloted, solar-powered aircraft strong enough to handle both long and high flights when encountering normal turbulence. With only a 46.5-ft wingspan, it had a huge horizontal stabilizer and had enough wing area for 16,128 solar cells. After design modifications, Ptacek flew across the English Channel flight on 7 July 1981.

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Not long ago, I had the opportunity to rent a Fiat 500 Car. It's a little tiny car, just a smidge over the size of a Smart Car. It ran nice, easy to park, and the power was actually okay.

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Not long ago, I had the opportunity to rent a Fiat 500 Car. It's a little tiny car, just a smidge over the size of a Smart Car. It ran nice, easy to park, and the power was actually okay. The best part was the ease of use and incredible mileage rating - perfect for a local city car. In fact, the mileage was rated at 40 miles per gallon. I had noted when there was significant wind resistance, that is to say driving against the wind that the mileage had gone down a bit, but it was easy to gain that back while traveling with the wind. Like I said it was a very small car.

As you probably know the Fiat 500 is not actually an inexpensive car, even though it is merely a pod with four wheels. However, you might be able to buy a used one, perhaps at an auto auction. The reason I say this is that the auto auctions are filled with former rental cars. Typically a Rent-A-Car agency will run the car for 20,000 to 30,000 miles and then sell it at the auto auctions, or some rental agencies now have their own used car lots. Do I think that there will be a significant number of Fiat 500s available at the auto auctions in 2013 in 2014? Actually I do.

You see, Auto Rental News had an interesting article recently on December 20, 2013 titled; "U.S. Car Rental Market Achieves Record Revenue," which stated; "In 2012, the U.S. car rental industry is expected to achieve record total rental revenues of $23.63 billion at a total fleet size of almost 1.86 million vehicles."

Since more and more people are renting cars, doing car sharing, and these rental agencies are buying up more cars to run them for the 20,000 - 30,000 miles, that means they will start to become available and more prevalent by mid-2013 and by 2014 there will be plenty to choose from. Therefore, if you'd like to get one of these cars, you might not have to pay the full price, rather you can just buy a used rental.

One thing about buying a rental car at an auto auction is that they have been maintained fairly well, even if the miles were hard miles, as you can imagine most people that rent cars do not necessarily take care of them, or baby them like someone else would who bought it new and had to pay for it themselves.

Still, I thought you might like to know because this could be a very good option for you if you'd like to get a high MPG vehicle at a substantially lower price off the normal MSRP. Please consider all this and think on it.


Source : EzineArticles

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  • Lance Winslow
    has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Automotive Concepts. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank.

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