Dymaxion Car

Inventor Buckiminster Fuller was full of whimsical ideas – underwater cities, mass-produced bathrooms that could be installed like refrigerators, and most famously, the geodesic dome. His foray into automaking was a blimp-shaped car with three wheels, a periscope instead of a rear window and steering that could execute a perfect 180-degree turn. Fuller envisioned his vehicle as being part of a reordering of life where people would live in prefabricated dwellings in remote locations like the Arctic and the Sahara. The Dymaxion – which would also fly – would get them there. After one of the three prototypes was involved in a fatal collision, the Dymaxion was branded the “freak car,” and production was halted. The last remaining Dymaxion is in Reno’s National Auto Museum.