What if Buckminster Fullers Dymaxion Automobile had been mass produced?

The Extraordinary Dymaxion Automobile

Posted by Alan Bellows on 03 November 2005
(http://www.damninteresting.com/the-extraordinary-dymaxion-automobile/)


dymaxion.jpg
Imagine a car that seats eleven passengers, turns on a dime, has excellent fuel efficiency, and cruises happily at 120 miles per hour. A man named Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller imagined and designed such a car, and in 1933, several fully capable prototypes were built for Chrysler. This sleek, aerodynamic vehicle was called the Dymaxion.
Henry Ford had given Bucky Fuller some of his early V-8 engines to experiment with, which along with the Dymaxion’s light weight and aerodynamic design gave the car its appreciable cruising speed. It also managed about 30 miles per gallon, which was extraordinary in its time. The front-wheel-drive car was almost 20 feet long, but could make tight turns due to its unique wheel configuration; there were two fixed wheels in the front, and a single steerable wheel in the rear. This setup made the car nimble despite its size, able to corner well and parallel park like a dream. But it made driving a bit counterintuitive at times, particularly when attempting to compensate for a cross-wind. Its unusual steering system would ultimately bring about the project’s demise.

Bucky Fuller had even grander ambitions for the Dymaxion, planning to add jump-jet style flight when suitable alloys and engines became available. But this car-of-the-future never had to leave the ground to impress and astonish, it was a marvel of automotive engineering. Few who saw it had any doubt that this sleek car– which looked nothing like a typical 1930s automobile– was a true example of the Car of Tomorrow.
dymaxion_photo.jpg
In 1933, one of the prototypes could be seen cruising around the Chicago world’s fair showing off its stuff. But it was there that the Dymaxion was involved in a fatal accident which was initially pinned on the backwards steering system, and the investors pulled out of the project after a flurry of bad publicity. The Dymaxion was later exonerated when an investigation showed that the other driver had likely been at fault, but the damage wreaked by the negative press had condemned the project to the scrap heap of history. Later, in a book called The Age of Heretics, author Art Kleiner asserted that the real reason for the demise of the Dymaxion was that Chrysler was forced by its bankers to abandon the project; purportedly the bankers threatened to recall their loans because they felt the car would overtake the automobile market, and destroy sales for vehicles already in the distribution channels. We’ll probably never know for sure.

We may not know for sure but we can always speculate. So what if the Dymaxion Automobile had been mass produced?
 
Fuller would likely be more popular and his ideas would spread more widely. Perhaps by now we might have a worldwide electrical grid and have more geodesic domes.
 
What would the price have been in 1933? I'm not sure that the Dymaxion would be affordable at the height of the Great Depression.
I'm also not sure a car of the Dymaxion's size would sell well - how many people need a car that seats 11?
 
Hmmm... certainly interesting... can't quite decide what would be the effect thought. Beside perhaps a slightly higher standard of gasoline, and a different automobile aesthetic, perhaps a slight less use of rubber as well.

Then again that less gasoline and less rubber might add up. Perhaps several resources might be less in danger than they are now, and perhaps the developement of rubber might not have also been related to deforestation... hmm interesting possible effects.
 
The linked article site had links to a video that did not work. :(

So I went and looked for some. :)


two-minute video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlLZE23EJKs


three-minute video, I think Buckminister Fuller himself is doing some kind of presentation, it is difficult for me to pick up what he's saying, and there's lots of car footage,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-m1HRNxf-8&feature=related


four-minute video, some intelligent-sounding guy is presenting about it in front of one in a museum and in background of vintage car footage,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c00uk3q8bVs&feature=related
 
If cars with high capability of high-speed travel become mainstream relatively early in the century, maybe the American highway network would have been devised with "autobahn" speed limits in mind, that is, none. :D

As a result, American cars would have needed to be designed and engineered with that kind of performance expectation in mind. The vaunted German-made car's "autobahn pedigree" wouldn't be exclusive to Germany.

Maybe this could have led to higher standards for driver education in the United States as well. It could have involved a larger federal role in driver licensing.
 
That thing is hideous! Maybe it could have done something if produced in some post-colonial country as a mini-bus, but it is too ugly and strange for the US, Europe and Australia as a regular family car.

Just as a matter of interest, despite the claims of 120mph, it was only ever documented at 90mph and was crashingly unstable in adverse driving conditions.
 
Steering was kind of counter-intuitive as well apparently. Mr. Fuller might have done better trying to streamline a conventional car than develop a radically new one.
 
The Dymaxion was a concept car. That means it was a showcase for certain ideas, not a finished, manufacturable design. It did not have to meet any requirements for practicality, manufacturing cost, durability, or safety.

The fact that the accident it was in was a fatal one is suggestive. Regardless of which driver was at fault, it did not provide sufficient protection for its occupants. (The Dymaxion driver was killed and the two passengers were injured, while the driver of the other car was uninjured.) It appears that by making the car as light as possible to increase gas mileage, it became too flimsy to provide protection. The body was a thin skin of aluminum over a wood frame.
 
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