Modern-Aviation

Taylor Aerocar (1949)
One of the best-known flying cars even though it surfaced decades ago, Moulton Taylor (1912-1995) hoped to put his Aerocar into full-scale production. It came pretty close too, with five airworthy examples produced before the project fell apart.

Taylor Aerocar (1949)
Capable of cruising in the air at 100mph and on the ground at 55-60mph, the Taylor Aerocar towed its own wings when in road mode; it was pretty ingenious really. But not ingenious enough to work commercially.

Curtiss-Wright Air Car (1960)
When is a flying car not a flying car? The answer is when it hovers just above the ground, as the Curtiss-Wright was designed to do. Measuring 21 feet long and eight feet wide, the Air Car came about after the end of WW2 when the US military decided it needed to develop something that could skim the surface of land and sea.

Two fully functioning Air Cars were made, powered by a pair of Lycoming 180bhp aircraft engines and at full power the vehicle was capable of gliding along at up to 15 inches above ground while carrying a 1000 lb (455kg) payload.

Curtiss-Wright Air Car (1960)
Looking like a (very) overgrown fairground dodgem, the Air Car's top speed on the ground was 38mph. When the military lost interest, Curtiss-Wright attempted to modify the Air Car's design for civilian use, but for some reason there was no demand from consumers.

One Air Car survives, as pictured, in the US Army Transportation Museum at Ford Eustis in Virginia.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)
Wealthy Englishman Count Louis Zborowski (1895-1924) built the original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with a 23-litre aero engine. He raced it at Brooklands where he was watched by James Bond creator Ian Fleming, who immortalised Chitty by writing a children's story which was turned into a screenplay by Roald Dahl; the movie arrived in 1968, after Fleming’s death in 1964. The car couldn't fly of course, even if on the screen it appeared to be able to.