If You Built a Rolling Joke...

It would look like this:

The Reliant Rialto was made from 1981 to 1998 by Reliant Motor Company in England. Boasting an 850 cc four cylinder engine with a fiberglass body.
More pictures here

The Rialto was built to replace this...

A 1979 Reliant Robin -
This "car" was built by the Reliant Motor Company in England from 1973 to 1981
In 1989 Reliant brought back the Robin name and produced a version of the vehicle until 2001.
73 MPG and a top speed in excess of 100 mph on only 37.5 bhp
Lots of better pictures can be found here.

The Robin was built to replace this...

A 1969 Reliant Regal
This "car" was built from 1953 to 1973.
65 MPG, just over 110,000 units sold - more than any other model.

The Regal was built to replace this...

Built from 1946 to 1953
Believe it or not the Regal had a spin-off
The "Bond Bug"

Built from 1970 to 1974 this vehicle had some Reliant running gear including the engine. Originally produced by Bond Cars Ltd.
The landspeeder from Star Wars was built on the chassis of a Bond Bug.
Tons of pictures here.

Now that I've documented more than 50 years of ugly what is the draw?
Why would someone subject themselves to driving or even riding in one of these?
Lots of them were sold to people who had good reasons for buying them.

• The vehicle was light weight and not very powerful so it could be driven in the United Kingdom on a motorcycle license.
• More than 65 MPG
• Small cars are better in crowded cities with narrow streets.
• Easy to park
• They are good to drive in straight lines.

Jeremy has some thoughts on the car. Some of them are even positive.
Jeremy put a four point harness in his - highly recommended.
Some people don't think the Robin is as bad as Jeremy says at least as far as rolling over is concerned.
One down side is safety. The thought of even doing 50 mph in a three wheeled, fiberglass, tip over-mobile worries me.
It's important to drive these in highly populated areas so that there is always someone to roll you back over close by.

Rollover Video One
 Rollover Video Two - The Stig Rolls a Robin
Robin Video - To Infinity and Beyond