A different kind of emergency vehicle...

Sure, an armoured, camo'ed 4by with spots, IR, hard points, firing ports, and minigun mounts looks cool in a video game, but in reality, something that gets great fuel milage, has a large load capacity, extremely quiet, easily transportable, and just the thing for transporting lightly injured people, you might consider purchasing a gas powered golf cart.

*They get 75+ mpg, and run just fine on old skunky, treated gas.

*Often seen hauling 2-4 large golfers with bags, over steep terrain on slick tires, without spilling their beer.

*Can't hear them running full speed from 25 feet away.

*Have a range of 500+ miles on a full tank.

*Will smoothly haul two open 5 gallon buckets of water in the bag floor.. or 8 stacked bales.

*Wide tires with low psi to load ratio don't leave a trail to follow, even short golf course grass springs back up in minutes.

*Smooth, quiet, floating movement, golf carts are legendary for approaching wild game within a few feet.

*Incredibly handy as a step saver, hauling tools, produce, feed, kids or what have you, around a homestead, campsite, firing range, patrol area, or festival/market venue.

*Easy to operate.

You might consider that everyone knows what a gun case looks like. Pretty hard to disguise what's in THAT bag you're carring...
But that old Titelist Tour bag with all the pockets, the Callaway Hooters bag for 5 dollars on eBay, a garage sale vinyl bag with a few old clubs thrown in for 50 cents.......
Looks pretty innocuous on the back of a cart while someone's doing a bit of yard work or checking out something, or for that matter, carried from a house to a car trunk.

The point is, a highly practical emergency vehicle is sometimes better off if it doesn't look like one, and a gas golf cart is a wonderful device. I have used one to quietly catch and castrate baby calves in the morning, play 18 holes in the afternoon, and check fence and haul fishing tackle down to the pond and back in the evening.

In an urban emergency, I could see one being used to haul fuel and generator to a new location, patrol a neighborhood, deliver food, haul water, collect rations, pull a trailer, move the elderly, while quietly sipping a thimble full of gasoline, for months at a time.

I don't know if this insane, or absolutely brilliant. How well do they work with snow and ice?

I vote brilliant! Of course, that could just be the pain meds talking... <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

-Blast

golf cart good but i'll take an ultra mini pickup.....
with slightly larger tires of course.
http://www.daihatsu.com.my/hijetmaxx.html

They get around in wet and soft conditions with ease.

There are numerous web sites devoted to souping them up, making them faster, and customizing the body. (there's even a mini-hummer body for sale)

A lift kit is mostly to clear larger wheels and tires, which makes a cart faster, while trading low speed torque. Wheel kits and lift kits are quite modest in cost. Some folks go with highly aggressive tread for traction and vanity, but I use mine for golf (I have two), so I don't want a bill for tearing up a course.

The stock alternator is also the starter, and puts out enough current to charge the battery, run lights, stereo, fan/swamp cooler/AC or heater.

There are winter sides, windshields, whipers, boxes, baskets, dump beds, strobe lights, extra seats, litter racks, and 2-way radio kits for sale. My new cart has Golf GPS built in, for distance to the flag.

My 10 year old worn out cart can climb into the bed of a lifted 3/4T 4X4 Ford from a dead stop from the bottom of the ramps.

Parts are cheap and readily available over the net. A new engine is around $400, but they are pretty simple to overhaul. A new spark plug, fuel filter, oil filter annual tune-up kit costs about $15, and you'll need a quart or so of oil for the annual change.

I've seen fire-rescue units use specialized flat-bed golf carts for working large crowds. The points of high gas mileage, and low noise are one of the reason I think.

I spend a lot of time jogging in a gated golf community where residents go everywhere in their carts (not just around the course). The gas powered golf carts that I encounter are much louder than any of the cars or trucks that pass me by.

Parents have a John Deer Gator which is basically a green golf cart but has a dump bed and 6 wheels.
It can hit 40mph so it would travel pretty decent. In WV where they live ATV's are street legal if your over a certain age and legally licensed and a couple other rules so I don't see why vehicles like this couldn't just get some signaling lights and street tires and be made street legal, they are close to the size of a subcompact car.

Insane. Where the heck would I put the firing ports on a golf cart? <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

"Insane. Where the heck would I put the firing ports on a golf cart?"

In the conning tower, you ditz! SHEESH! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Sue

The place I used to play paintball at had a very unique setup on an old subaru 4wd sedan. coming out the top of the car through the sunroof was the gunner. On the roof was mounted a tripod with a pipe in the center.

What they did from here was even more interesting. They took a semi-automatic paintball gun, took a boat ratcheting crank and applied it to the trigger to make a 'fully automatic' hand crank semi-auto paintball gun. They applied a small metal rod to the bottom of the gun, fixed it in the tripod, and thus had a fully automatic vehicle they'd throw around the field occassionally. Nifty stuff and interesting premise.

Against anyone who keeps their head and is a reasonable shot, the gunners "life expectancy" is about 30 seconds....... <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

One thing that I love about paintball: It's a great tool for teaching people what NOT to do. Getting "killed" 3 or 4 times soon gets the message across. Rambo is for Hollywood. This is real life. <img src="/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Uh huh...and? Thanks for the tirade about paintball. You'll notice nothing I stated had anything to do with the tactics of paintball and it's application in the real world. Rather I was using an anecdote as a reference on how to build a gun mount.

Life expectancy is a joke. You're in a GOLF CART. We're not talking lexan panels or 5 inch aluminum plate. We're talking fiberglass you could poke a stick through. If anyone put severe fire on a cart like this you'd be in a serious world of hurt.

But if you're going to mount a gun (which is what I was ORIGINALLY answering) then you could potentially use the one I described in my historical reference to the days when I played paintball.

Does that clarify enough?

Been there done that. Built a special cart to hold a driver, medic, liter and EMS gear. Worked great for tight crowd usage.

I'm not a ballwhacker, but I have followed my step-son around the links a bit, and EVERY golf cart we have ever used at a golf course was electric. Really quiet, but gas mileage of zero.

At my current volunteer position we have been issued a gas powered ClubCar. No way to check the mileage (no speedometer or odometer), but it has a top speed (per my GPS) of 11.3 mph, and you can hear one coming from a mile away (OK, I exaggerate a bit). Sounds like an old gas powered washing machine...

Check it with your GPS, will give you (or should) distaance traveled, speed, and even time in motion.