When you consider what the typical North American sedan looked like in the 1930’s, this thing was wild.
The Simpsons were part of the same deal, and that’s a great show, but Futurama never really did it for me. Apparently, it had a lasting impression. The second I saw the Dymaxion, it reminded me of one of those cargo ship things from Futurama, a show that I’ve hardly ever watched, certainly not in the last decade.
It’s got some Airstream going on and more than a hint of a blimp-shape, but nothing came to my mind more than an animated spacecraft. Weird flashback for a weird vehicle. The Dymaxion isn’t just a nose-heavy whale-mobile fit for outer space, but it’s also an incredible piece of engineering and efficiency. Designed by Buckminster Fuller in the 1930s, the Dymaxion was obscure all around.
The goal was 120mph, but it was said that the achievement was closer to 90mph, which is still impressive given the power plant was a Ford flathead V8 with eighty-five horsepower. With seating for eleven, that flathead would have had its work cut out for it. The engine was modified to run on alcohol and reported to achieve a high of thirty miles per gallon, with the low being twenty.
Where front-engine/rear-drive was commonplace, the Dymaxion was instead rear-engine/front-drive. Rear-wheel-drive would make more sense, but in this case, there was only one rear wheel to drive versus two up front. The driver sits ahead of the front axle and behind a typical steering wheel. However, what wasn’t typical was that the single rear wheel handled the steering like a forklift. A forklift is a touchy animal in road gear, and it’s not that hard to get the back end swinging at even ten miles per hour. At ninety, the Dymaxion has the same problem, only much worse. A death wobble at speed is one thing, but when air gets under the vehicle and lifts the rear wheel that’s responsible for one-hundred percent of the steering right off the ground, you’ve got big problems. The Dymaxion wasn’t that heavy, certainly not heavy enough to account for its size. The frame was steel, but the body structure was wood, aluminum, and canvas. They built three in total, but only one remains today. Tragically, one was crashed at the 1933 World’s Fair, killing the driver and any chance of investor interest in such a vehicle. It was repaired and later lost in a fire. The other one was allegedly miled across the country and sold for scrap, which is a huge success if it’s true. One remains in a museum, telling the story of what could have been, had it not been for an unfortunate accident early on.
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