So Where's my @#$%^ing Flying Car?.. A rant

It's always amazed me and gave me a reason the chuckle, at all the "Cars of the future" that had "Pedestrian Skewers" on them , front and rear!

 

I re-read my whole rant this morning and I guess I'm just really disappointed with the imagination vaccuum in Detroit. They are so busy merging and trying to find ways to make corporate money that making imaginitive autos is really on the back burner.
I look at those posts of Roth and Barris cars that are 45 years old , and think "Geez, what an imagination" Maybe they didnt work, but they were out there along with jetpacks - and we were all excited.
The most exciting cars I see now are posted right here on the HAMB.
Good work, guys!

 

Some nice cars there and i work for GM and yes you were date raped and butt fucked.One question though....Who the Fuck is Jesse James?i keep hearing the name bandied about but i though Jessie james was a fuckin outlaw or something so please tell me who the fucking wanker is cos i need to put a face to the wanker if you know what i mean..............Marq

 

This post reminds me of this clip...!

http://www.viewaskew.com/tv/leno/flyingcar.html

But I preferr the flying car that was built in the fifties...!

http://142.26.194.131/aerodynamics1/Appendix/Aircraft/flying_car.htm

or by Moller...!

http://www.howstuffworks.com/flying-car.htm

Watch this one go...!

http://www.stupidcollege.com/items/Flying-Car

Or this...!

http://www.retrofuture.com/flyingcar.html

 

ROTFFLMAO that is the funniest $#+*%@ing thing i've read here yet!!!! repoman.... your the man!

 

you were a kid in the 1950s that read Popular Mechanics? Wow, you are a bitter, bitter old man

haha

Havent you guys ever seen the Back to the Future trilogy?

 

Sober now, are ya'? Too late! Where the @#$%^ is my one man personal helicopter that I can park in my garage when not in use?
I'll tell you where. The same place as your @#$%^ Flying Car.
The bigheads at the FAA considered the idea of 1 million commuters all flying to work in the same big city some morning, envisioned the flaming carnage in the skies and killed this vision of the future forever.

 

The classic example of killing an alternative is Los Angeles prior to their subway system. They had street cars and it would have been relatively cheap to reuse the same tracks and right of ways. These were bought up by three companies, I believe GM, Firestone and Standard Oil. They tore up all the tracks and the subway went through, but at an exorbitant cost. I'll do some googling on this. Found it. http://www.baycrossings.com/Archive...r_buses_the_great_gm_streetcar_conspiracy.htm
A fascinating read if you've never heard the story.

 

Hey Mike,

I posted a link to that above. Here it is again:
http://www.kittyhawkfreepress.com/monster.html

Here's a picture of it in the air

 

Here it is:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=4532350711

I've been dreaming of owning/building one of these since I saw Mad Max.

http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero/aircraft/benson_b8.htm
I actually have a hangar to do it. I just have to figure out how to mount the 421.

 

I do remember those! They claim it can't autorotate. I don't know enough to beleive them or not but one of those would be great to terrorize my neighborhood.

 

How's this?-MIKE

 

I know where it is........
Still in the heads of men, however the manufacturers no longer use the heads of men to design the cars only the little details that atttempt to make one computer designed equation (5 passengers x 4 doors x 20mpg.....) look a little different from the next companies computers solution to the same problem..........
I'm afraid we live in an age (in our heads) where things were made beautiful first and practical second as opposed to the reality of now.... practical first, like the joneses second and beautiful is way down the list.

 

I hope not by Midgets

 

LMAO it was a sinister sales pitch,"DRIVE CARS ONLY NEVER WALK OR YOU'LL DIIIIE"

 

Somewhere along the way we just gave up on dreaming.
I looked at that car in popular Science, and all I could think was “That is so goddam cool!” ( the girl in the swimsuit helped the mental image.)
I wasn’t cynical. I didn’t think about airspace, mileage, impracticality, controllability issues or any of that shit.
I lived in a world of infinite possibilities. ANYTHING was possible in the future. It wasn’t just because I was eleven - My parents believed too!!!
That was the world in 1953.
We didn’t think about running out of resources . All problems were conquerable.
Today we know better and are absolutely cynical about new ideas and thoughts. We’re TRAINED to look at the downside of everything.
1953-- Damn, I miss those days.

 

But ANYTHING is possible! That hasn't changed. What has changed is the spirit of America.

Want a jetpack? It can be done. They had working models 30 years ago. It can be built today.

Unlimited resources? Not oil, but there is the sun, and nuclear energy. But they require technology, and they cost more than the easy solution of fossil fuels.

It's hard to believe we are the same humans who built the pyramids and went to the moon.

 

There's the Red Baron. Now where the hell is Snoopy??

 

Here's three brochures on Epay of Ford concept cars from the 50's

#1) 'Nucleon' - Atomic powered http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1319&item=7143916998&rd=1

#2) 'Volante' - Triple turbine?? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1319&item=7143917007&rd=1

#3) 'Maxima' - 3 wheeled, twin jets, with pedestrian skewers http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1319&item=7143917018&rd=1

None of these fly, but I totally understand your rant. What happened to imagination, and design esthetics?? It wasn't only the science magazines, it was also the cartoons. I had fantasies about doing Jane Jetson in the back of their flying car! Maybe even Judy too! Where's my floating house? Where's my moving sidewalk? Where's my jet scooter???? The bastards led us on, all the while knowing they were planning of building cars that look like chinese take out boxes! What the hell happened? It's like there has been a intentional witholding of anything beyond what has been around for over 100 years. Bastards!

 

thread resurrection:

There's a flying car. In space. Today. Finally!

now, back to your regularly scheduled program

 

Fulton's Airphibian

 

Molt Taylor built a FAA certifies flying automobile in Longview,Washington. There were several variations and one was used by actor Bob Cummings in his tv show. Ford Motor Company was interested in developing the car but decided against it because of the lack of control as to who would have access to fly it. They were concerned about 1000's of people with no flying skills operating them.
http://aerocarforsale.com/history.htm

 

​

 

There's a chapter on this in The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy by David Graeber. It's a good read, though Graeber's take on it is a bit different to mine. Mine is that under the current dominant industrial model the product is not determined by any kind of spontaneous demand from the public but by the practical requirements of the techniques of production which best serve the interests of the manufacturing establishment. In other words, they don't build what people want; they build whatever requires the specific sort of capitalization they alone can swing and then paint a picture in which that is historically inevitable. The flying car was always a Good Reason why you can't build a new Cadillac in your backyard.

 

Geez, How strange to see my post from 2005 back up.... Thank you Mr Musk.

I'm gonna re-post this because I think it is SO true:

Somewhere along the way we just gave up on dreaming.
I looked at that car in popular Science, and all I could think was “That is so goddam cool!” ( the girl in the swimsuit helped the mental image.)
I wasn'’t cynical. I didn'’t think about airspace, mileage, impracticality, controllability issues or any of that shit.
I lived in a world of infinite possibilities. ANYTHING was possible in the future. It wasn'’t just because I was eleven - My parents believed too!!!
That was the world in 1953.
We didn'’t think about running out of resources . All problems were conquerable.
Today we know better and are absolutely cynical about new ideas and thoughts. We'’re TRAINED to look at the downside of everything.
1953-- Damn, I miss those days.

 

Squirrel(s)...rootin' around in the basement!
Excellent!

 

...yeah, that car they sent up into space yesterday;...jus think what that'll be worth someday if they ever bring it back down,,...they said it could be up there a billion years!

 

And I thought my car insurance was high, imagine what it would cost to insure your car on the end of a rocket!

 

Here it is finally.



Actual
Picture.
This is nuts!!

 

The battery is too heavy it will not lift off the ground or maybe Nader killed it.