As long as we’re discussing hydrostatic drive around here with the diesel hydrostatic drive motorcycle and a 2WD hydrostatic trail bike, how about a hydrostatic drive race car? Bob Horn sent in this link showing some design work done by students at Aston University in England.
As part of a project called the Global Design Initiative (GDI), students in countries around the world cooperated on the design of a car in Solidworks. The car uses a steel spaceframe and a Honda 600cc motorcycle engine but then things go in a different direction when the engine is connected to a variable displacement hydraulic pump. There is a fully regenerative braking system and hydraulic steering as well.
The car as designed would not go more than 65 mph but the whole point of the project was to coordinate design teams around the world to work on a single project. The design was put together in only 5 days, which is pretty neat in itself.
Although this project is a software design existing only within Solidworks, it does have systems that could conceivably work and since we’ve already seen examples here of some projects using hydrostatic drive that work quite well, it’s pretty interesting.
Link: Racecar Engineering
Related: Solidworks books