A History of the Flying Car

A.K.A. A History of Failure

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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When the Wright brothers were finally able to get the aeroplane soaring through the big blue sky, everybody thought that was pretty cool. For most, it was a fantasy that seemed unattainable, more fiction that possible reality. But once the wings got off the ground, the gears started turning faster than ever. Seeing as people were already efficiently tooling around via this newfangled machine called "automobile," the natural assumption was that flying would continue to develop as the next wave of everyday personal transportation. Thus, the dream of a flying car born.

Of course, the idea was far, far ahead of the technical prowess of either aerospace or automotive engineers. The flying car's long timeline is filled with dozens upon dozens of failure, with only a few successes sprinkled in, most of which haven't come until recently. As we imagine what it'd be like to fly to the grocery store and fly home everyday after work, learn a little bit about just how hard that'd actually be to integrate with this detailed History of the Flying Car.

Related: The 50 Coolest Fictional Cars

1917 - The Curtiss Autoplane

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1924 - Eddie Rickenbauer Makes a Bold Claim

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1932 - "Flying Tanks... War's Deadliest Weapon"

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1933 - The Dymaxion

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1935 - Windmill Autoplane

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1936 - Autogiro Company of America AC-35

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1937 - Waterman Arrowplane

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1937 - Gwinn Aircar

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1940 - Aerobile

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1942 - Popular Science's Flight of Fancy

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1945 - "Popular Science"'s Crowd-Sourced Flight of Fancy

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1946 - Fulton Airphibian

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1946 & 1947 - Convair Models 116 and 118

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1949 - Aerocar

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1950 - Aerauto PL.5C

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1953 - Bryan Autoplane

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1958 - Ford Volante Concept

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1958 - Curtiss-Wright VZ-7

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1959 - Chrysler VZ-6

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1961 - The Absent Minded Professor

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1962 - "The Jetsons"

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1962 - Piasecki VZ-8 Airgeep

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1962 - Moller XM-2

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1965 - Wagner Aerocar

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1971 - AVE Mizar

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1982 - Spinners

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1989 - AviAuto

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1989 - Calvin Bemoans the Lack of Flying Cars

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1989 - Moller M200X

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2002 - "The Flying Car"

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2008 - Aeroflex Hover Bike

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2003 - Moller Skycar M400

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2005 - Jesse James' Flying Car

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2008 - Maverick

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2009 - Terrafugia Transition

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2009 - Urban Aeronautics X-Hawk

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2009 - Butterfly Super Sky Cycle

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2012 - PAL-V

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2021 - Terrafugia TF-X

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