“New Patents Forecast Your 1942 Car” on the cover of “Popular Science,” June, 1940. Uncredited cover artist, perhaps Edgar F. Wittmack.
“Tomorrow’s Car? New designs place the engine behind. Colored transparent plastic forms top, upper half of body and tail fin.
“Streamline from nose to tail, looking like a giant aerial bomb on wheels, this model from a leading independent car manufacturer has its engine lifted bodily from the conventional forward spot and set down near the rear axle in what would be a 1940 car’s trunk compartment. Although still in normal alignment, the engine and transmission are operated by remote control from the single driver’s seat placed up in the very nose of the car, where the operator can take full advantage of his unlimited field of vision, unhampered by any trace of bulky fenders or engine hood.
“Back of the driver, in a compartment that looks as roomy as a small living room, the passengers relax in comfortable unpholstered chairs, positioned nearly in the center of the car body, as far as possible from the axles, and at the point where vibration and road shock are at a minimum. Light pours in through a transparent top and, as the teardrop car purrs down the highway, no trace of noise or odor from the engine in the rear has any chance of annoying those in the passenger compartment.” [Text from the accompanying article]
A car assembled from the front end of a Volkswagen bus, the tail end of a plane and the top of a Vistadome train
"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future!"
-- Niels Bohr
“New Patents Forecast Your 1942 Car” on the cover of “Popular Science,” June, 1940. Uncredited cover artist, perhaps Edgar F. Wittmack.
“Tomorrow’s Car? New designs place the engine behind. Colored transparent plastic forms top, upper half of body and tail fin.
“Streamline from nose to tail, looking like a giant aerial bomb on wheels, this model from a leading independent car manufacturer has its engine lifted bodily from the conventional forward spot and set down near the rear axle in what would be a 1940 car’s trunk compartment. Although still in normal alignment, the engine and transmission are operated by remote control from the single driver’s seat placed up in the very nose of the car, where the operator can take full advantage of his unlimited field of vision, unhampered by any trace of bulky fenders or engine hood.
“Back of the driver, in a compartment that looks as roomy as a small living room, the passengers relax in comfortable unpholstered chairs, positioned nearly in the center of the car body, as far as possible from the axles, and at the point where vibration and road shock are at a minimum. Light pours in through a transparent top and, as the teardrop car purrs down the highway, no trace of noise or odor from the engine in the rear has any chance of annoying those in the passenger compartment.” [Text from the accompanying article]
A car assembled from the front end of a Volkswagen bus, the tail end of a plane and the top of a Vistadome train
"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future!"
-- Niels Bohr