“The Box” - All Wheels Steer
Cornering attitude of Box when tested is flat, no lean or pitch—but all wheels adopt curious camber angles, and rear
Look at this ultralight
on-and-off-road vehicle that
hits new highs in mobility
By JIM DAVIS / PS West Coast Editor
R
acing car? Economy car? Dune
buggy? Off-road vehicle? The an-
swer, every time, is yes; the Box is all
of these. It began life as a multipur-
pose car suitable for street, track, and
offroad use; but because it has a fully
watertight body, it even converts to
an amphibian when paddles are fixed
to the wheels.
The designers, Dan Hanebrink and
Matt Van Leeuwen of Costa Mesa,
Calif., aimed for aircraft lightness.
They also had their own ideas on just
about everything in the chassis de-
partment.
A radical departure. The Box is far
from the norm. But when you analyze
it, you see the thoughtful reasoning
and the simplicity behind the design:
four-wheel-drive as well as four-wheel
steering; power by a rear-mounted
motorcycle engine, and belt drive to
transmit the power. With the two-
stroke, 500cc, 60-hp Kawasaki engine,
the Box will top 100 mph and do the
standing quarter-mile in 13.5 seconds
at 95-mph terminal speed! A four-
stroke LaVerda engine is now being
tested.
From the engine, power is transmit-
ted to the rear differential via a pul-
ley. Suspension is an independent
swing-axle affair, front and rear. It
utilizes a hydropneumatic nitrogen-
oil system, with separate reservoirs
for each wheel. Over rough terrain
this system really proves itself, tak-
ing the bumps out of ruts and gullies,
and making off-road driving almost
comfortable.
There is no separate frame. The
body structure is what holds the parts
together. The body is made in two
sections, a top and bottom, bolted to-
gether. The Box is a two-seater. You
step into it through a single front
door, which also serves as the wind-
shield.
The Box is made of balsa wood
(the ultralight stuff you build model
planes of) and fiberglass (the kind
used in big aircraft). The balsa, end-
cut into small pieces, is fitted between
layers of the fiberglass.
Although aircraft fiberglass is
harder to work and requires more at-
tention to detail, it gives greater
strength. Using this balsa/glass sand-
wich construction made it possible to
strengthen points exposed to the
greatest stress—such as suspension
mountings—without beefing up areas
that don’t need it.
Controls for the Box. They’re sim-
ple—borrowed from motorcycle com-
ponents. Gear-changing is managed
with the right hand, and so is the
clutch control. The left hand controls
the throttle by a twist-grip arrange-
ment, as used on motorcycles. Brakes
are applied simply by pushing the
throttle grip forward.
You steer with your feet. It sounds
weird, but really isn’t. It’s like the
steering on those soapbox carts you
had as a kid. When you pushed with
your right foot, the cart turned left.
When you pushed with the left, you
turned right. But in the Box, instead
of pushing directly on the axle, you
 Yo u s t e e r with your feet, use hand controls box. Driving the Box, D.avis discovered,
of motorcycle type for throttle, clutch, gear- is no stranger than anything else about it.

To p s e c t i o n is made of
end-cut pieces of balsa
wood sandwiched be-
tween fiberglass and
molded. Door (which
holds windshield) and
windows are cut out
wheels show a pronounced steering angle!

and Drive
after molding.

F i b er g l a s s bo t t o m m o l d
shows great tightness of the
supporting structure with
are operating a hydraulic four-wheel total lack of seam, joints, or
steering system. The surprising thing bond. The raised area in the
to the designers was that it proved floor pan form the cover for
the suspension control arms.
easier to make than a conventional
Sketch below clarifies trans-
two-wheel mechanical steering gear mission and suspension
and linkage. principles, and shows the
When can you buy? Plans call for unique disk brake that is
about half a dozen of the Boxes to be mounted inboard.
built by the end of the year. A team
of them will be entered in the Mexi-
can 1000 off-road race this winter.
They’ll still be experimental. After
that, start watching for yours.

“THE BOX” SCORE

Wheelbase 77 in.
Track (front and rear) 68 in.
Overall length 144 in.
Overall width 80 in.
/(w/tires)
Overall hight 40 in.
Ground clearance 8 in.
Steering Closed-loop hydraulic
Suspension Swing axles front
and rear with hydro-
pneumatic struts
Wheels 13 x 10
TIres 5.75/12.00.13
Dry weight 700 pounds
Transmission Uniroyal belt drive Engine
3-cyl. Kawasaki 500
or 2-cyl. La Verda 750