The Dymaxion car was designed by American inventor Buckminster Fuller during the Great Depression and featured prominently at Chicago's 1933/1934 World's Fair.[1] Fuller built three experimental prototypes with naval architect Starling Burgess – using donated money as well as a family inheritance[2] – to explore not an automobile per se, but the 'ground-taxiing phase' of a vehicle that might one day be designed to fly, land and drive – an "Omni-Medium Transport".[3] Fuller associated the word Dymaxion with much of his work, a portmanteau of the words dynamic, maximum, and tension,[4] to summarize his goal to do more with less.[5]
The Dymaxion's aerodynamic bodywork was designed for increased fuel efficiency and top speed, and its platform featured a lightweight hinged chassis, rear-mounted V8 engine, front-wheel drive (a rare RF layout), and three wheels. With steering via its third wheel at the rear (capable of 90° steering lock), the vehicle could steer itself in a tight circle, often causing a sensation.[6] Fuller noted severe limitations in its handling, especially at high speed or in high wind, due to its rear-wheel steering (highly unsuitable for anything but low speeds) and the limited understanding of the effects of lift and turbulence on automobile bodies in that era – allowing only trained staff to drive the car and saying it "was an invention that could not be made available to the general public without considerable improvements."[7] Shortly after its launch, a prototype crashed and killed the Dymaxion's driver.[8][9]
Despite courting publicity and the interest of auto manufacturers, Fuller used his inheritance to finish the second and third prototypes,[10] selling all three, dissolving Dymaxion Corporation and reiterating that the Dymaxion was never intended as a commercial venture.[11] One of the three original prototypes survives,[12] and two semi-faithful replicas have recently been constructed. The Dymaxion was included in the 2009 book Fifty Cars That Changed The World[13] and was the subject of the 2012 documentary The Last Dymaxion.
In 2008, The New York Times said Fuller "saw the Dymaxion, as he saw much of the world, as a kind of provisional prototype, a mere sketch, of the glorious, eventual future."[14]
History
Fuller would ultimately go on to fully develop his Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science, his theory of using all technology on behalf of all people as soon as possible, but by this point it was "his job, Fuller decided, to identify a problem, develop a way to solve it, and wait – perhaps as long as twenty-five years – for public awareness to catch up."
In 1930, Fuller had purchased an architectural magazine, T-Square, which he ultimately renamed Shelter. Fuller edited the magazine anonymously for two years, and in 1928 published sketches of his land-air-water vehicle, called a 4D Transport.[3] 4D stood for Four Dimensional,[15] a term used in physics and mathematics, referring to length, width, depth and time.[16]
Regarding the 4D transport, author Lloyd S. Sieden, wrote in his 2000 book Bucky Fuller's Universe:
"With such a vehicle at our disposal, [Fuller] felt that human travel, like that of birds, would no longer be confined to airports, roads, and other bureaucratic boundaries, and that autonomous free-thinking human beings could live and prosper wherever they chose.[7]"
Design
Because Fuller was aiming for what he called Omni Medium Transport, a vehicle that could go anywhere,[7] the Dymaxion would ultimately have "wheels for ground travel and jet stilts for instant takeoff and flight."[7] Jet stilts were Fuller's placeholder idea for a future technology that could provide compact, concentrated lift — twenty years before the commercial availability of jets.[7]
Estimating that designing a land–sea–air vehicle was then financially and technically out of reach, Fuller focused on the most dangerous and challenging mode of such vehicle: landing and taxiing on hard ground.[21]
Fuller favored front-wheel drive, studying the way a wheelbarrow could more effectively pull its load rather than pitch forward when pushing a load.[7] He began studies of the relationships between vehicles (cars, trucks – and also birds and fish) with the media in which they operated (
Prototypes One, Two and Three
- Prototype One, at 20 ft long,[23] was built on a hinged two-frame chassis constructed of lightweight chromoly steel[24] with aircraft-type dished lightening holes[24] – and powered by a Ford V8 engine producing 85 bhp in a rear-engine, front-wheel-drive layout. The front axle was a re-purposed and inverted (the flipped axle must be inverted to prevent the pinion gears from running the wrong way) rear axle from a contemporary Ford roadster. Tires were provided by Goodyear.[25] The suspension used leaf springs "turned sideways" (transverse leaf springs)[14]
Later prototype history
In 1934, Noguchi drove a completed Dymaxion on an extended road trip through Connecticut with Clare Boothe Luce and Dorothy Hale, stopping to see Thornton Wilder in Hamden, Connecticut, before driving to Hartford for the out-of-town opening of Gertrude Stein's and Virgil Thomson's Four Saints in Three Acts.[29][30]
One of the prototypes was driven extensively in a campaign to raise funds in support of the Allies in WW II.[25]
- Prototype One was badly damaged in the noted car crash at the time of the 1933 Chicago Century of Progress fair. The car was repaired and sold to the director of the automotive division of the U.S. Bureau of Standards (BoS), only to be subsequently destroyed in a fire at the Washington D.C. garage of the BoS.
Handling limitations
Fuller and Burgess realized early that the Dymaxion concept would present considerable challenges.[7][21] As anticipated, and in line with the purpose of the exploration,[21] maneuvering in high winds proved problematic, with the vehicle having a strong tendency to turn into the wind.[7][21] Steering difficulty and lift at the rear of the vehicle were also observed.[7]
Fuller realized the Dymaxion "was an invention that could not be made available to the general public without considerable improvements," and instituted a program of constant refinement and improvement to the platform.[7]
Speed record
Soon after launching Prototype One, Fuller was invited to exhibit the Dymaxion at a Bronx race track, beating the track record by 50% and drawing attention because it did not slide or drift across the track like the other race cars.[7]
Crashes
A highly publicized[18] crash in Prototype One on October 27, 1933, occurred "virtually at the entrance to the Chicago Century of Progress World's Fair."[31] The Dymaxion rolled over during the crash, killing its driver, Gulf employee Francis T. Turner, and seriously injuring its passengers: aviation pioneer (and noted spy) William Sempill and Charles Dollfuss, curator of France's first air museum.[18]
The cause of the crash is disputed. A coroner's inquest did not ascribe fault for the accident, stating that it involved a collision with a car driven by a shoe salesman named Meyer Roth (Fuller erroneously identified Roth as a highly placed Chicago Parks commissioner).[32][31][2]
Auto industry
Fuller received interest from Walter Chrysler, Henry Ford, and Henry Kaiser as well as companies including Packard, Studebaker and Curtiss-Wright.[7]
Chrysler said Fuller had "produced exactly the car [he, himself, had] always wanted to produce", when his company had set out to design a highly advanced, aerodynamic car, the Airflow, which Walter Chrysler ultimately found inferior.[7] Chrysler commissioned Fuller to study the development of the Airflow, finding that Fuller had used one quarter the money and a third the time to make his prototype.
At various points, it appeared that several manufacturers were interested in marketing the Dymaxion. Walter Chrysler was interested, although he advised Fuller that such an advanced design would meet considerable resistance,[7] and would make every used car on the road obsolete, threatening the wholesale dealer distribution and finance network.
Replicas
Hemmings Motor News cites two "faithful or semi-faithful" replicas:[18]
- The Foster Dymaxion Replica was built in October 2010, by architect and student of Buckminster Fuller, Sir Norman Foster.[36][37] Foster's team conducted extensive research to replicate its interior, which had completely deteriorated on the only surviving prototype and had not been well documented.[38][39] Foster was able to borrow Prototype Two under the condition he would also restore its interior.[40]
See also
- Streamliner: Automobiles for overview of early aerodynamic automobiles
- Flying cars
- Early "teardrop" cars, chronologically:
- Rumpler Tropfenwagen (1921), first aerodynamic "teardrop" car to be designed and serially produced (about 100 units built)
- Persu car (1922–1923), designed by Romanian engineer Aurel Persu, improved on the Tropfenwagen by placing the wheels inside the car body
- Stout Scarab (1932–1935, 1946), US
- Schlörwagen (1939), German prototype, never produced
Further reading
External links
- , excerpt from the Robert Snyder film, The World of Buckminster Fuller, 1971
- , with Amelia Earhart as passenger
- The Dymaxion Car – The Futuristic Vehicle That Remains in the Future
- CFD Analysis of Dymaxion Car
References
- {{patent |US|2101057}}^
- Frank Magill. The 20th Century A–GI: Dictionary of World Biography, Volume 7 Routledge, 1999^
- Robert Marks. The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller Anchor Press / Doubleday, 1973^