WEST Magazine / February 11,
1996 / Page 5
WILDWEST
PARKING
NO PROBLEM
By Tracie Cone
Tiny purple car finds
space all over Palo Alto
Tiny
"Pterodactyl" gets 100 miles ot the gallon, and
not one ticket.
Jan Krieg calls himself Dr. Technology, but
he is neither a doctor nor a toiler in one of Silicon Valley's
many high-tech enterprises. What he has scientifically figured
out, however, could be more useful to humanity than curing
disease or designing a faster chip, especially in his hometown
of Palo Alto, a city with approximately 10 times more trendy
home accessory stores than parking spaces.
Proving that necessity is, indeed, the parental
unit of invention, Dr. Technology has built a smaller, more
easily parked vehicle, and the world is beating a path to
his tiny door, which is painted with his nickname in a very
eye-catching pink. They're knocking mostly because they
want to ask him what the heck he's tooling about town in.
Dr. T will probably tell you it's a home-made
space saucer powered by cold fusion. I'm pretty sure he's
lying, but these days, who can tell? Aliens, I've been told
by UFO-watchers, are among us. The machine's shape does
look a lot like Darth Vader's head on top of a go-cart.
Dr. T's miniature car can be seen nearly every
day zipping up and down University Avenue loaded with other
people's false teeth and dental bridgework. Dr. T makes
these things, I should tell you, lest you mistakenly assume
that a guy who believes he's driving a flying saucer would
also have an unnatural desire to transport uppers, lowers
and partials for no apparent reason. He uses his tiny car
to deliver them from the lab to dentists' offices.
"It has solved all of my parking problems,"
says Dr. T, "and it doesn't consume very much energy."
All of the energy, it seems, goes into explaining
what the vehicle is, especially since December when he painted
it an eye-catching shade of purple. People run him down
on foot, as I did, or gather around enviously to ask questions
when he whips into the tiniest sliver of unoccupied asphalt
to make a delivery.
He built the vehicle nine years ago when he
got tired of spending half of his delivery time searching
for parking. It took two weeks and several hundred dollars'
worth of sheet metal and tubing. He combined parts from
a Honda scooter and a go-cart.
"At first it was just plain metal, but the
dog peed on it a couple of times so I had to make it look
better," says Dr. T, who drives in a stylish black leather
motorcycle-style jacket. "Now I think the purple color makes
it more noticeable."
No, Dr. T, a 44-inch-wide vehicle that looks
like one of those miniature circus clown cars would be noticeable
in any color amid the Troopers, Land Rovers and other automotive
giants that cruise downtown P.A., spewing fossil fuels in
their exasperating search for a place to shut down.
Speaking of fossil fuels, Dr. T calls his
purple car "The Pterodactyl." He doesn't call it that because
the decayed bodies of pterodactyls and other prehistoric
creatures are what metamorphosed into the oil we use to
operate combustible engines.
"I am the founder of the Society for the Preservation
of the Pterodactyl," explains Dr. T.
Aren't you a little late to save flying dinosaurs?
"Oh, they're still around."
The 350-member society is a group of Palo
Alto doctors, lawyers and other business types who meet
at least once a year at a black-tie gathering to "drink
champagne and talk about what we'd do to save the world,"
Dr. T says.
What he's doing is trying to cut down on car
emissions and fuel consumption. His car goes 50 mph if you
don't mind a lot of vibration, and gets 100 miles to a single,
87-octane gallon of unleaded. He's driven it as far as San
Jose. The optimum speed for the 15 horsepower engine is
30. The entire car is 8 feet long, 350 pounds, street-legal
and license.
"My old Volvo cost me $75 a month in gas and
got 20 miles to the gallon," he says. "This costs about
$3."
It has no air bags, safety belts, anti-lock
brakes, nor side impact door reinforcements. What kind of
match would it be for a 5,000-pound opponent?
"Everything is relative," says Dr. T. "A car
offers no protection from a train. If everyone was driving
a car this size, we'd all be OK."
The only remaining question is this all-important
one: Does it work? And we don't mean mechanically.
"I've never gotten a ticket," says Dr. T.
"I've never even been stopped, and you'd think that I would
have just out of curiosity."
Kevin, a tow truck driver, double-parked (because,
of course, there were no parking spaces nearby) to take
a look at Pterodactyl, though there would rarely be a need
to tow a vehicle that can be carried practically as easily
as the saucer that George Jetson folded into his briefcase.
"Only in Palo Alto," Kevin said, walking back
to his big truck, "the town for artists and people with
unique ideas."
It's also the town where only a Pterodactyl
can find a place to park.
TRACIE CONE is a staff writer for West.
