Ever daydream of owning your own flight car … from the 1950s ? If you happen to have $ 1.25 million rest around , you could make that encounter !
It seems every year we see companies likeTerrafugiaandMollerpromise that the flying car will soon be an everyday realism . But people often forget fly cars have been around for over half a 100 . Greg Herrick , an aircraft collector in Minneapolis , is sell his1954 Taylor Aerocar N-101Dwith an asking price of $ 1.25 million . His wing cable car of the retro - time to come sport a yellowish and pitch-black body and as you could see from the photo above , still work !
Herrick has over 40 aircraft in his individual collection and the Aerocar was one of the first he ever purchased . He purchase the fly car in the other 1990s from a humans in Idaho and says he was drawn to the Aerocar just as many citizenry in the latter one-half of the twentieth century were . “ I was just at the rump death of that contemporaries that variety of grew up with that dream of … well , I guess every generation has had that dream since the [ invention of the ] automobile — of a flee car , ” Herrick tell apart me .
TheAerocarwas designed byMoulton Taylorin 1949 and only five were ever produced . so as to take flight the Aerocar must be convert into an aircraft with wings that pen up forward . Though it take care cumbersome , the vehicle was marketed in the early fifties as being so casual that a woman could do it “ without colly her baseball glove . ” The video below is a newsreel about the Aerocar from November 5 , 1951 .
Herrick ’s Aerocar was first listed for sales agreement in December 2011 . His most recent itemization include some of the glasses :
The AEROCAR features side - by - side seating for two . Advanced for its time , most of the fuselage pelt is of composite material and the railroad car is front wheel drive . In flying the wings are gamy and unobtrusive . Powered by a Lycoming O-320 Engine the propeller is mounted at the ending of a long fag end conoid , the latter angled up for propeller clearance . Cruise speed is about 100 miles per hour . mockery speed in 55 mph and the airplane is controlled by the same guidance bike as is used for driving .
But why deal it ? “ I like rarity . I care strange things , ” Herrick tells me . “ I care affair that stand for progress or order a account . But as time passes your perceptiveness bug out to become more processed . And no matter what it is you ’re doing you ca n’t collect everything and you ca n’t be an expert in every area . So my interests begin to transmigrate toward the golden age of aviation between the wars — in particular the aircraft that were almost miss to history . So this airplane is kind of superfulous to my needs . ”
But if you ’re remember about bribe this blast from the past do n’t forget that you ’ll need two kinds of policy ! “ When I buy the matter , I was looking at the insurance and I had to have two different indemnity policies : an air travel policy and then I had to get an machine policy , ” Herrick tell . Making certain you have two kinds of insurance is for certain one of those realities that The Jetsons never warned us about .
This office originally appeared atSmithsonian.com .
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