The Best Concept Cars of the 1930s
This goofy three-wheeled people hauler was supposed to be a flying car someday. Designed by architect Buckminster Fuller using his own trust fund, the Dymaxion (named for dynamic, maximum, and tension) was a death trap at high speeds or in high winds. Autoweek took a replica for a drive, and it’s obvious where the problem is:
The Dymaxion car’s bizarre configuration should be the first clue that it’s not exactly going to be the most stable thing on three wheels. The reverse-trike configuration is a decent start, but it all quickly goes to hell: though it is front-wheel drive, the Dymaxion car’s Ford V8 is way in the back — just ahead of the singular rear wheel, which is cradled by a suspension system cobbled together from Ford components.
That rear wheel is how you steer the car, for some reason. In theory, this front-wheel-drive-rear-wheel-steering configuration gives the Dymaxion car a very tight turning radius. In practice, it walks all over the road, even at the low speeds (20 mph to 35 mph) we held it down to; crowned or rutted road surfaces are extremely difficult to negotiate.
Keeping Bucky’s beached whale pointed straight demands slow, deliberate and constant steering adjustment. At the back of our minds there was the fear that a quick input or an overcorrection would send the car swinging back and forth across the road like an out-of-control pendulum, ultimately leading to our horrible, embarrassing death. This fear was not unfounded, as the car the Lane Museum replicated most closely (prototype number one of three built) killed its driver back in 1933.
Yup, one of the three prototypes built back in the ’30s was hit by another car, killing the driver of the Dymaxion who was even wearing a seatbelt at the time (a very rare safety precaution for the 1930s.) Fuller made a lot of wild claims about his car, like how it could travel 90 mph and squeeze incredibly milage out of a totally unmodified flathead Ford V8. Sure, he sounds like a shyster, but aren’t all dreamers and visionaries a little bit crooked as well?
