Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion Car

[natureartists]

Cool Car. Looks something like the art car I have been thinking of making.

[unitivity]

THIS CAR WAS NOT A DEATH TRAP. It had a very low center of gravity.

I was told by bucky that when you turn the wheel it jacked up the rear a little

and if you let the wheel go it would go straight. THe accident you are speaking of

was a cab ran a stop sign and hit it in the side. it was so far ahead of the others they look like boxes. check it out in the film. It was a design that will come back.

[Zeno1999]

@unitivity < I've seen 3 wheeler in India, large and small versions with one tire in the front few decades ago and they still have these- better fuel economy as fuel costs 3-4 times more there.

[Rogerlowrey2222]

@unitivity Good post, thanks for the truth, You Tube spreads to much false info

[tincoffin]

@unitivity Here in UK three wheelers used to be quite popular as they attracted less tax . If you put the single wheel at the front It was probably better to get out and walk if you came to a corner.They still sold probably to kill your mother in law  but with the single wheel at the back as here they worked quite well. They are still made in small numbers as fun machines.

[Capitancanguro1]

The design is flaw, you can't drive at high speed with rear steering.

[SkengRudebwoy]

@moonlightdsn and hemp oil?

[ultimatezeldafan101]

The dymaxion was a GREAT car

ford or dodge should make a new dymaxion with extra's like modernisation

fix the three wheel thing (it tipped over killed a person with three wheels)

so it will still have three wheels

because it is a great car!

like this comment if you want ford to make one

[cadceddddd]

@ultimatezeldafan101 The dymaxion car was a complete death trap. the center of gravity was too high and the wheel base was too narrow. One was "bumped" on a roadway in Chichago and it went out of control and crashed, killing the driver and severely injuring everyone else on board. It was a wonderfull example of the impracticality of over-engineering and the dissregard of physics.

[MisterDoctorNerd]

when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're going to see some serious shit.

[Bullettube]

With a tricycle wheel arrangement you can never avoid potholes or obstacles in the road, you'll always hit something with one of the wheels. With four wheels you can always straddle a pothole and if one tire goes flat you can still drive on the remaining three tires. This simple fact is always forgotten by geniuses and backyard inventors. Henry Ford figured this out, his first car was a 3-wheeler and he found it easy to build and drive, but impractical to own.

[VengefulMilk]

The people who were going to fund this car (Owners of the Blimp thingys) came to test the car for themselves, but there was an accident and a few people were killed and injured, I want to say one of the investors themselves, so they scrapped their investment in the manufacturing.

[jamesdond1]

This is the world's first mini-van. American industry has no place for engineers lacking a degree like Buckminster. Yet virtually every out of the box ideas have came from such men who were not trained to persue the intelectual dogma of the day. Having worked for decades in Silicon Valley it has been such men who have made most of our disruptive technologies we have seen in the last 100 years.... We never learn....

[ilnaras]

If this puppy were shorter, I would totally want one. Not only looks cool, but that singular rear wheel makes parallel parking a sinch (0:41).

I hear the car was basically buried because the banks recalled their loans. Something about other car manufacturers being afraid the DMX would put them out of business. Maybe it would have... :-)

[godnmyhands]

i love to compare it to all the other cars in the footage. so far ahead of his times... so far! most people still cant comprehend it and in feeling stupid condemn him as insane. "that's either pure genius or pure stupidity."

[spactick]

I wish Bucky was around today. He could figure out an alternative fuel car.

[diddymuck]

I understand the VW Vanagon was inspired by the design of the DMX car.

[MrPanetela]

,,,a speeding ticket.,,,vehicle is so agile and quick to accelerate pass the other cars on the highway....now if that isn't a statement, then I don't know what is..

[diddymuck]

what prevents the Dymaxion from being produced today??

[videosfromderelix]

@diddymuck probably auto companies that know it would cost them money if people don't have a machine that constantly breaks down and needs maintenance.

[unitivity]

go to: conversationswithbucky dotcom

[mickeydamon]

My grandfather used to scoop all the chicks back in the day with that car!

[threelegduck]

from 0:40 to 0:44 is that a parallel parking job? how to do that? revolving rear wheels?

[bennyhaslonghair]

@threelegduck

It had a rear mounted ford engine, front wheel drive with only 1 rear wheel, this was the turning wheel.

[clarencecmcgee]

The little cutie in the back seat is Amelia Earlhart!

[YourHealthyPlanet]

Not only an amazing automobile but it was intended to travel on water and fly ... an 'omni-vehicle'. As an engineer I chaired a public meeting in 1996 in Australia and video was shown of vehicles in Japan that had sensors to prevent them going off the road or crashing into the vehicle ahead. Our transport system is still in the "Dark Ages" as Fuller would have said and it is time we got off the ground, so to speak.

[pm0501]

I was sure I saw one of these at the Museum Of Science And Industry in Chicago. Was it moved to Nevada within the last 10 years?

[unitivity]

@pm0501 one burnt, one in reno, and one in chicago sicence and industry.

[mikenoxaura]

LOL

not if i beat ya to it chemist!

;)

[CutChemist]

If I'm ever independently wealthy, I am going to personally finance a whole new line of these.

[xparfum]

Fuller was such a visionary.

[Bimfix]

The design was incredibly stable. The accident was reported, but probably never happened. This was a running theme with Buckminster Fuller's inventions. They were great, but the public was skeptical because they were so different and then all of the sudden a news story came about just in time to ensure his inventions never had a chance to compete with the current market leaders.

[jobirgheidi]

@Bimfix You are very bright and I am sure that is exactly what happened. He was a genius and way ahead of his time. My ambition for years has been to build a geodesic dome.............check those out!

[danich45]

i think there was an accident with that car and the passengers were hurt really bad. it wasn't a very safe design

[1acount]

bull,it was,secondbig deal even if there was,in real life theres plenty of car accidents even with todays cars

[harkonnenturd]

No wonder the amish dont drive cars id hook the exhaust up thrue the c60 window design if the windows even role down and end my life.

[JoeHawking]

It won't happen, buddy. The Feds make far too much money to allow anything of any real efficiency to be produced on a large scale. Have you ever considered what percentage of the price of gasoline is tax (state and federal), and what would happen to the gov's cash-flow if everything suddenly got twice the fuel-mileage? (I'd like to see what would happen, really...)

[YourHealthyPlanet]

@JoeHawking Hi Joe ... you would love the VW they built (experimental) that the got 1000mpg, almost double their deign brief. Was shaped just like a bullet, ultra light weight and cameras put the back instead of rear view mirrors etc. But I'm clear the time of petrol driven is finished ... all electric from now, and solar powered.

[DYNODRUM]

@JoeHawking Excellent statement: Yes WE are paying daily a huge , one just to get in and turn a KEY ............

[sdold]

It looks like it would be prone to ground-loops.

[vancouverbluz]

Interesting discussion. Interesting concept - the car as a community organizer. Why go to the store when you, your wife and your neighbors can go to the store together? The internal combustion engine is from the 1800s, we have overused the technological inventions of the past, because we can't do anything better seemingly.

[monsterrancher1]

was the drive wheel in the back?

[rednecksinspace]

No, it was rear engined front wheel drive.

[lordestopa]

Fuller was a genius...This was the future, the real thing!!

[911truthseekers]

it would be kewl if this car was updated and Hydrogen energy was implimented

[Teflon65]

Too bad the future isn't what it used to be.  There should probably be statues of Buckminster Fuller, and maybe Frank Lloyd Wright, in every town.

[MaciejDlugosz]

@SESConferenceExpo

But... there is actually... Velayo. It's build on the same principle but in a smaller scale. It's also aerodynamic. And Velayo is also front wheel driven. And just like with Dymaxion Car - some folks are afraid of the (Velayo's) rear steering capabilities. Same story. People are simply afraid of new things.

[clearlogicify]

@SESConferenceExpo Too big for any advantage in cities (+ gas and visibility issues). Too dangerous for motorways. There is a great reason why we don't have mass produced three wheeled cars around today. They are notoriously unstable.

The way the back-end swings round looks lethal to pedestrians.

Nice example of forward thinking though. Looks like a detached passenger section of an airship.

[desertblbuesman]

If this car had been produced and what people ideas of what a car is had evolved, we would not be at war now. The overall design was so far ahead of it's time, but unfortunately the masses still had images of the horse and buggies as what is pleasing and sensible and a disconnect from the idea of thrift when thinking of oil. Sad.

[barbaralovesblack]

I've often wondered what would be necessary to make an updated version for today's highways.  There doesn't seem to be an "experimental" category for cars like there is for airplanes.

[rareproperty]

The woman in the back of the car appears to be Amelia Earhart who I think ordered one of his cars but he could not afford to build it...

[msyq]

according to nytimes website Only one of these cars survives, and New Yorkers will get a chance to see it this summer in an exhibition opening June 26 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York

[LeechiLeech]

That hs to be one of the best concept cars ever, did it ever make it into production???

It Kinda looks like a hippy truck thats been squashed and stretched with those windows at the side

[SquireofFire]

3 were built, each were slightly diferent, production stopped after 1 of them had a bad crash (no1 knows d reason of crash, most blame it on car behind it) investors then pulled out of project, none were built again. only 1 remains in a museum but d interior was destroyed and ppl r not sur wat it looks like so they cant reconstruct inside.

[satweavers]

The audio track over that montage feels very dreamy. That's a wonderful video. Thanks for posting this.

[SquireofFire]

it has more mpg than some cars of 2day especially considering it cud cary sumtin like 11 ppl at 120mph 190km/h. shame only 1 remains, i wud really like 1 and wud like 2 c wat else d company cud come up wit.

[desertblbuesman]

The performance was WAYYYY ahead of it's time.

[JPWatt]

A parallel parker's dream!