Yesterday's "Cars of Tomorrow"

The major American automobile companies have created concept cars or "cars of the future" since the 1930s. Throughout the years, the greatest automotive designers such as Harley Earl, John DeLorean, Virgil Exner, and Rust Heinz have stretched their imaginations to the limit; some with great success like the Corvette and Firebird. Others succeeded as paeans to great weirdness only, like the Ford Nucleon. And then there were the outside mavericks like R. Buckminister Fuller.

Ford Nucleon

While a non-operational model was indeed built, the concept of the Ford Nucleon itself was a sensation in 1958. Instead of an internal combustion engine, the Nucleon was to have a small nuclear reactor in the rear of the vehicle. This would be known as a "power capsule."

1954 and 1958 were boom years for concept car weirdness. This was back when Ford really did have a better or at least weirder idea.

Ford Volante

In 1958, the Volante was Ford's flying "aero car" concept vehicle. Like the Nucleon, the model was non-operational, but nonetheless a breakthrough design.

Ford FX-Atmos

Instead of a steering wheel, 1954's Ford FX-Atmos had two pistol-butt hand-grips which was claimed to have better steering control than a wheel. The FX-Atmos concept model was also non-operational. Most notable about it was the body design. The Ford FX-Atmos was a dead ringer for the space craft in "The Jetsons", the animated series that debuted eight years later in 1962. Like the FX-Atmos, the Jetsons' craft had a long torpedo-shaped metallic body with a glass bubble roof.

Lincoln Futura

Unlike the Nucleon, Volante, and FX-Atmos, the Lincoln Futura was a fully operational concept car model. Like the FX-Atmos, the Futura looked a rocket ship shape; but, in its case, it was a rocket ship shape of the Flash Gordon variety. Additional unusual features included roll-down doors and the push-button gear shift controls that were mounted on the steering wheel.

After its 1958 display needs were fulfilled, the Lincoln Futura concept model wound up in George Barris's North Hollywood, California garage. Barris was and is Hollywood's greatest car customizer. Almost ten years after acquiring the car, producers approached Barris to design a vehicle for the "Batman" television series. And so the Lincoln Futura concept car was customized into TV's Batmobile.

Bucky Fuller's Dymaxion Car

And then there was the rare genius designer who had never and would never climb onboard a major automobile company. R. Buckminster Fuller was one of those. While he's best known as the architect/engineering wizard who created the Geodesic Dome, Fuller is less known for designing a car of the future in 1933.

His Dymaxion Car was fully operational and completely revolutionary. Its Quonset hut-shaped steel body was mounted on two car chasses, and could make 360-degree turns on its own axis. Eleven passengers comfortably fit inside the Dymaxion Car and it easily topped out at 120 mph and only burned 30 miles per gallon on average. Again, this was in 1933.

There were only three Dymaxion Cars ever made. Fuller stopped building them after one was involved in a fatal collision at an auto show. One of the surviving models can be seen today at Washington D.C.'s Smithsonian.

SOURCES:

http://www.businessweek.com/autos/content/jan2006/bw20060127_689697.htm

"The Cars GM didn't want you to see", Phil Patton, Forbes, URL: (http://www.forbes.com/2001/03/19/0319feat.html)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon

http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=3359

http://www.automuseum.org/NAM_collections_dymaxion2.shtml

http://autos.aol.com/gallery/cool-concept-cars-of-the-past

"Yesterday's Tommorrows", David Corn and Brian Horrigan, URL: (http://books.google.com/books?id=CsW34SciarAC&pg=PA102&lpg=PA102&dq=%22ford+volante%22&source=web&ots=wziJg36rMG&sig=YnPw7oZ6V48tYHkwMj8MCz-KaLE)