A wooden bike to replace the car: Napier man’s two-decade quest to invent a better form of transport

• Malcolm Antonsen has spent over 24 years designing the “Hydrocarbonanza”, a wooden transport vehicle.
• Antonsen believes his creation can make cars obsolete by offering safer, slower and more efficient transport.
• He hopes this article will help him find someone to assist in marketing the Hydrocarbonanza.

A Napier fisherman’s thirst for innovation and lust for efficiency has driven him to create what he considers the ideal machine for human transport – something he hopes will turn the car into an antiquated contraption of the past.

Malcolm Antonsen has been working on his vehicle designs for over 24 years, creating them out of wood in his garage. He’s lost count of how many versions of the bike he has created.

“You build one and then you go, ‘I think I can make it a little bit better,’ and then go and build another one and back and forth, back and forth. It’s trials and errors,” said Antonsen.

“Failures are more valuable than your successes – if you’re motivated.”

He is regularly seen driving his creation, which he calls the “Hydrocarbonanza”, from his home in Napier South to Mitre 10 Mega in Onekawa.

Antonsen considers it a pilgrimage, calling the home improvement store his “church”.

He said he used to wear a cowboy hat while riding his creation, which made him self-conscious, so now he sports a wizard’s hat.

Malcolm Antonsen stands atop his invention, the Hydrocarbonanza, which he hopes will one day bring an end to car travel. Photo / Jack Riddell

To the untrained eye, Antonsen’s creation looks like a mix between a bike, a Dalek from Doctor Who, and a Spanish galleon.

The vehicle features no seat, pedals from an elliptical trainer, four wheels (two regular bike tyres at the front and back and two smaller wheels on the sides), a steering wheel, an electric drill to help the contraption “bow” to one side or the other, a lithium battery, wooden levers and handles, among an array of other carved and bought additions adding to the contraption’s functionality.

Antonsen calls it a “powerful complex algorithm built out of an algebraic wooden kit” created to help render cars obsolete.

“I think cars are pretty, amazing, but they’ve been our asset, but now they’ve turned – we’ve become a slave to them and they’re letting us down now. They’re a terrible thing. Too heavy, too empty, too fast, too dangerous, too expensive.

“I’m an iconoclast because I’m destroying the icon of the motorcar.”

With the help of AI (artificial intelligence), Antonsen believes he has discovered that the optimum speed for ground transport is below 20km/h.

At this speed, Antonsen said that congestion, fatal accidents and other problems caused by the automobile are cancelled out.

Plus, being about half the width of a standard car, Antonsen says his invention would allow more room on the road, allowing free-flowing traffic “all day, everyday, everywhere”.

“The car achieves its most in the supermarket carpark, going five to 10 kilometres an hour, and you get your bloody groceries and you get home. No one dying.”

However, when it comes to helping put his creation on the market, Antonsen is hopeful that this article will find the person who can assist him in changing the world.

Unfortunately, for a man who wants to revolutionise the future, he is pretty determined not to have a cellphone or email address.

The best way to get in touch with him to buy a Hydrocarbonanza is to wave him down when he’s buzzing past on a Napier street.

Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and spent the last 15 years working in radio and media in Auckland, London, Berlin and Napier. He reports on all stories relevant to residents of the region, along with pieces on art, music, and culture.