Fort Myers, FL – While staying at the Naples Motorcoach Resort, Karla saw an ad for Gulfcoast Slingshot Rental’s half day rental of something called a Polaris Slingshot, and figured it would be fun. The Polaris Slingshot is an odd hybrid between a car and a motorcycle. You sit in it like a car: two people side by side in bucket seats. You drive it like a car: interacting with a steering wheel, three pedals and a stick shift. But like a motorcycle, it has no roof, no doors and barely a windshield. The wind flows through your hair, the bugs lodge in your teeth. You’re out there man, free to roam the open road with no constraints. And you don’t even need a motorcycle license (well, maybe, I’ll talk about that later).
Mike and Karla ready to take the Slingshot for a spin
The Slingshot is wide up front but skinny around back. Between the two front wheels resides the engine, a repurposed 2.4 liter 4 cylinder from a Pontiac Solstice. The only transmission is a 5 speed manual, also from the GM parts bin. The rear part of the car consists of a tire. One tire, right in the middle. That’s it. Yes, it’s a really wide tire, but still, that makes for an outlandish looking vehicle. A kid summed up the look of the Slingshot nicely, “it looks like a clown car”. If I owned one I might call it the batmobile, but I can’t argue with the kid’s logic.
The Slingshot has only one rear tire
So, what’s it like to drive? It’s really fun, I genuinely enjoyed driving it. You sit basically on the ground, making for a great center of gravity. The exhaust is raspy and loud (of course, everything is loud when you remove what makes a car from a car). The shift throws are short and precise, I found it very easy to drive smoothly and quick. My field of vision was phenomenal; now I understand why people tour using motorcycles. We left Fort Myers and drove across the causeway to Sanibel Island, where we bird watched in the “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge and continued on to Captiva Island, stopping for lunch at the Island Cow on the way back.
Side view of the Polaris Slingshot
The downsides? Ingress and egress are, shall we say, not graceful events. Instead of getting into the vehicle, you put on the vehicle, like a tight pair of jeans. It’s not a pretty sight. But once inside there is plenty of legroom and the seats were comfy. I was pleasantly surprised. The ride is quite rough, you feel every slight undulation in the road surface. But I doubt anyone views this as a long distance cruiser, so I can overlook a little vibration and harshness.
Mike enjoyed driving through the JN “Ding” Darling Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island
My biggest complaint was actually the windshield, or should I say, location of the windshield in my field of forward vision. A good portion of driving was looking over the windshield, but some required looking through the windshield, providing an uncomfortable optical discontinuity. It proved to be very annoying and was a showstopper for me. Perhaps Polaris offers different windshield height options; although the best solution would be no windshield at all.
As for legal requirements to drive a Slingshot, that depends on the state in which you register it. About half the states view it as a motorcycle, meaning you must take and pass a state approved motorcycle course and have an “M” endorsement on your drivers license. The other half call it an autocycle and don’t require anything beyond your standard drivers license. Florida currently considers the Polaris a motorcycle, but legislation is afoot to change that this year.
