Yes, really...



"Curtiss Wright had been producing airplanes for many years when they started their ground effects program. They had developed the Air Car as a four-passenger commercial vehicle and hoped that it would be accepted by the public as a sort of air-cushioned equivalent of the family car. Lift was provided by two vertically mounted 180bhp aircraft engines and the air ducts on the sides and rear made it possible to maneuver around."

Full article, with links to two videos, here: https://www.throttlextreme.com/1959-curtiss-wright-model-2500-air-car/

I found this via the Quirky Rides account on Twitter ("X"  ), which is well worth a follow: https://x.com/QuirkyRides/status/1773621409333309693?s=20

I can just see how one of them would work in a typical US rush hour traffic pattern....................

The insurance claims would run to pages and PAGES!

And why only two passengers? It looks wide enough for four easily. And of course where would a US new car announcement be without a bikini clad dolly showing us the finer points of the design? 

Quote from: PR19_Kit on March 29, 2024, 10:33:46 AMI can just see how one of them would work in a typical US rush hour traffic pattern....................

The insurance claims would run to pages and PAGES!

And why only two passengers? It looks wide enough for four easily. And of course where would a US new car announcement be without a bikini clad dolly showing us the finer points of the design? 

On the other hand though, the lawyers would love it because then they'd be able to expend huge volumes of hot air about huge volumes of hot air...

I suspect that weight was the problem with payload, rather than space.

Where they really failed to grab the attention of the US market was fins, or, more to the point, the lack of fins.

Especially being a hovercar, it should have been Fin City!

Mmmmmmmmm, stylish.
I like it.
 

It's very low riding.  I can't see how it would cope over speed humps or traversing on and off sloping driveways.

It would have needed skirts, like the larger SRN4-5-6s did, to get over any serious bumps and stuff.

The  hovercar has an illustrious past (or should that be future) in Whiffworld

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=42298.45

And there will be more...

...when I get round to it.

Quote from: zenrat on March 30, 2024, 04:53:07 AMAnd there will be more...

...when I get round to it.

Does this imply that round tooit is the secret ingredient in the anti-gravity drive then?

Quote from: Weaver on March 30, 2024, 08:02:02 AM

Quote from: zenrat on March 30, 2024, 04:53:07 AMAnd there will be more...

...when I get round to it.

Does this imply that round tooit is the secret ingredient in the anti-gravity drive then?

Tuits of any shape can be used in anti-grav drives, but round tuits generate the smoothest laminar plasma flow  through the neodymium vortex units.



(Or some such impenetrable technobabble.)

C-W had been out of the airplane business for over a decade by the time they came up with the Model 2500. It was loony but some had high hopes. 

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Quote from: PR19_Kit on March 30, 2024, 04:21:17 AMIt would have needed skirts, like the larger SRN4-5-6s did, to get over any serious bumps and stuff.

Perhaps if those skirts were wider and longer than the body, they could also act as the very neccessary collision bumpers that you'd need if everybody was driving these in the traffic.

GOOD thinking, oh yes. I've seen the way SRN4s could 'bounce' off the side walls on the ramp at Dover sometimes,. and it was JUST like that.

I was impressed when I saw an SRN4, coming into Portsmouth in bad weather, launch itself onto the concrete ramp off the top of a 2m breaker.  Yeeee-haaaaah!

Quote from: PR19_Kit on March 30, 2024, 04:13:57 PMGOOD thinking, oh yes. I've seen the way SRN4s could 'bounce' off the side walls on the ramp at Dover sometimes,. and it was JUST like that.

Turns the rush hour into a game of bumper-cars: what's not to love? (Cyclists and pedestrians don't get to answer this...)