Dymaxion Car

Fuller's 1933 aerodynamic, three-wheeled experimental vehicle—a "ground-taxiing" test bed for a future flying, driving "Omni-Medium Transport."

The Dymaxion car was designed by Buckminster Fuller during the Great Depression and shown prominently at Chicago's 1933–34 Century of Progress World's Fair. Fuller built three experimental prototypes with naval architect W. Starling Burgess—funded partly by a $5,000 gift from stockbroker Philip Pearson and partly by Fuller's own inheritance. The goal was not an automobile as such but to explore the "ground-taxiing phase" of a vehicle he imagined might one day fly, land, and drive: an "Omni-Medium Transport," derived from his earlier 1928 "4D Transport" sketches. The name Dymaxion—a portmanteau of dynamic, maximum, and tension—captured his aim of doing more with less. To his daughter Allegra, Fuller called it a "zoomobile" that could hop off the road, fly, and settle back into traffic.

The design featured a teardrop aluminum-over-ash body (its shape refined through plaster wind-tunnel models made with sculptor Isamu Noguchi), a lightweight hinged chromoly chassis, a rear-mounted Ford flathead V8, front-wheel drive, and three wheels. The single rear wheel steered with up to 90° of lock, letting the 20-foot car turn in a tiny circle and park in a space only inches longer than itself. Fuller claimed roughly 30 mpg and speeds up to 120 mph. A later computational-fluid-dynamics study at Coventry University found the form close to a drag optimum, likening it to a humpback whale.

Fuller understood the vehicle's severe handling limits: with rear-wheel steering and poorly understood aerodynamic lift, it tended to turn violently into crosswinds—a tendency he compared to an aircraft's "ground looping"—so only trained drivers were permitted. A highly publicized crash near the Chicago fair on October 27, 1933, rolled Prototype One and killed its driver, Francis Turner; though a second car was involved, headlines blamed the car's "freak" design. Despite interest from Chrysler, Ford, and others, Fuller sold all three prototypes, dissolved the Dymaxion Corporation, and stressed the car was never a commercial venture. One prototype survives at the National Automobile Museum in Reno; architect Norman Foster built a faithful replica in 2010.

See Also

• R. Buckminster Fuller (R. Buckminster Fuller) — the central figure
• W. Starling Burgess (link) — co-designer and naval architect
• Isamu Noguchi (link) — sculpted the wind-tunnel models
• Norman Foster (link) — built a 2010 replica

Sources

• Dymaxion car (Wikipedia)