Fascination with flying cars
It looks as though every sci-fi loving motorist’s dreams may very soon come true – believe it or not, a flying car has been declared road and air legal and could be in our garages within a year.
It’s exciting, if not incredible car news. To think that soon, we could all be flying to work, zipping over traffic jams, touching down in the school playground to drop off the children and dodging clouds, not rabbits.
There has for a long time been a fascination with vehicles that fly and while various prototypes have been built over the years ever since Waldo Waterman’s Arrowbile in 1910, it seems to have been those presented by television shows and films that have captured our imagination.
The 60s was a time of ground-breaking space exploration and ‘the future’ was very much a popular theme, little wonder that cartoon series, The Jetsons, caught on. Children watching George Jetson commute to work in his aerocar and the kids wearing jet packs were awe-inspiring.
Arguably (and we’ll get to that) the most famous flying car is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, strangely not a futuristic vehicle but one set back in 1910. Flying the family back to safety, away from the clutches of the Vulgarian Baron, Baroness and creepy Childcatcher, Chitty remains a much-loved film. The car itself sold recently for millions.
In ‘Back to the Future Part II,’ the Delorean (arguably the most famous flying car, etc, etc), though technically a time machine, was transformed into a flying car, with Marty McFly and Doc Brown dodging motors on an airborne freeway, supposedly set in 2015. However, what sticks in most kids’ minds about that film were the hover boards. Only four years to go, kids!
We already have planes and helicopters, what is it about flying cars that fascinate us so much? Maybe it’s the independent nature of the vehicles, you wouldn’t have to charter a car with fifty other people. Maybe it’s our ancient desire simply to fly like a bird.
Or possibly we just all want to be like Marty McFly on a hoverboard?