Reliant 'Rugged Robin' is ready for battle

The Reliant Robin has a loyal cult following that is characterized mainly by racing and funky paint jobs, but one man in England has taken the task of defending the Robin's honor to a whole new level.

Bernard Reeves of East Sussex in the United Kingdom told the Daily Mail that he got fed up with Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson's ridicule of the Robin, most notably in a film containing footage of Clarkson rolling a Robin multiple times before pushing it into a canal.

If Reeves has a grudge against people who poke fun of Robins on a regular basis, we'd suspect that Mr. Bean may not be entirely blameless either.

Reeves' Robin was given to him by an elderly neighbor. Over the course of six months, it was fitted with tracks and heavy artillery. It sports a Browning .50-caliber machine gun and what appears to be an outboard motor. Disappointingly, the video accompanying the Daily Mail article didn't show whether that outboard motor could be used to make the Robin swim.

Despite retaining the Robin's standard 850-cc engine, Reeves says that the “Rugged Robin” is capable of 50 mph on wet ground. Reeves says that the car drives just like a regular car, and because of the tracks, doesn't require Ministry of Transport certification.

Reeves doesn't comment on the Rugged Robin's stability, but the car remains on all three wheels throughout the video.

So far, the Rugged Robin has made an appearance at the War & Peace military show, but whether the Rugged Robin and Clarkson have crossed paths yet is unclear.

Here at Autoweek, we think that it would be the perfect scout vehicle to accompany the Ultrabus that we featured a couple weeks ago.

Thanks to Hooniverse for the tip.

By Seth Harrison