Car/Bike based trike question

[ratwing]

How do you define bike-based and car-based and does it matter come the time to get it registered? From what I've heard so far it depends on one or more of any of these - length/width/height/weight/Reliant or Morgan style wheelplan/number of wheels ie 3 or 5/engine origin/seating/type of front steering - whats the definative answer? I've also heard the weight you're allowed to ride depends on if you passed your bike test pre or post 2001 too! If anyone can help here I'd be really grateful, its looking like its really easy to end up building something un-registerable :(
Thanks guys.

[Alik Windrush]

if it ain't longer than 13' 6" wider than 6' 6", higher than 8' 2" and weighs under a tonne then it's a trike.....
Next......

[Gypsy]

i may be wrong but i think as long as the vehicle has a bike engine its a bike trike, other than that its a car trike, kinda hard sometimes cos we have seen what looks to be a normal bike trike but some bugger has stuck a car engine in where the original bike one would have been, so it might have something to do with the location of the engine!!! i dunno im just waffling now :D

[Blackjack]

Nah.

I think Gypsy has it right. The rear axle is almost always car based, and the forks are virtually always bike based. So that just leaves the drive line, car engine/gearbox makes it car based, bike engine makes it bike based.

A shaft drive jap bike with an Escort axle attached to the rear has to be bike based. Half a beetle with a pair of forks has to be car based.

If you use a scratch built frame, the over all style and design of it is affected by whether you choose to use a bike driveline or a car one.

If you start talking about Morgans and Reliants, then you're talking about three wheeled cars.

Trike is short for tricycle, which means three wheels. If it's got more that three wheels it isn't a trike.

[ratwing]

if it ain't longer than 13' 6" wider than 6' 6", higher than 8' 2" and weighs under a tonne then it's a trike.....
Next......
Cheers Alik, thats huge!! Looks like I won't have a problem using a big car engine after all :D :D

[Pennywise]

""length/width/height/weight/Reliant or Morgan style wheelplan/number of wheels ie 3 or 5/engine origin/seating/type of front steering""

number of wheels ie 3 or 5?

a unicycle has 1 wheel, a bike or motor bike has 2 wheels, a trike usually has 3 wheels hence the name tricycle, a car has 4 wheels.......what is the classification for a vehicle with 5 wheels?

[Blackjack]

Back in nineteen something or the other Rover built a quadricycle which was a sort of 4 wheeled motor bike.

Five wheels probably makes it a quinticycle or a quike.

[Pennywise]

built by rover it would be a quap....pronounced k-wap...

crap