Buckminster Fuller's 1933 Dymaxion

[underpants]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/automobiles/collectibles/15BUCKY.html

BUCKMINSTER FULLER’s 1933 Dymaxion, a streamlined pod on three wheels, is one of the lovable oddballs in automotive history. Three were built, fawned over by the media and by celebrities, but the car pretty much disappeared after one crashed, killing the driver.


Only one of the cars survives, and New Yorkers will get a chance to see it this summer in an exhibition opening June 26 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York called “Buckminster Fuller: Starting With the Universe.” The car, a nonrunning shell, has been lent by the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nev.

“The Dymaxion was the zenith of the first wave of semi-scientific streamlining,” said Russell Flinchum, a design historian. It showed up in newsreels and magazines, along with teardrop designs drawn by Norman Bel Geddes, the futurist. It helped lead to public acceptance of streamlined cars like the 1936 Lincoln Zephyr.

Despite Fuller’s talk of borrowing construction methods from the aircraft industry, Burgess built the car using many of the nautical methods applied to a racing boat. The chassis was aircraft-grade steel, but the body was an ash wood frame with aluminum tacked to its sides and a roof of taut, painted canvas. The crude suspension was made up of a Ford beam axle and leaf springs turned sideways. The tail was omitted.

[dipsydoodle]

1. And here's baby brother

1963 Heinkel Trojan Bubble Car

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

15. or three-wheel German-made Fuldamobil from the early 1950s

[Zachstar]

2. Designs for 30MPG cars were coming out in the 30s yet in 2008 its a big deal to own a car over 30MPG

Makes your head spin!!

[Jackpine Radical]

3. I had a 1984 Honda Civic that got 43 mpg.

I was disappointed by the Sentra I replaced it with because that car only got about 33.

[Captain Hilts]

5. I wouldn't want to drive that '83 Civic on I-95 w/trucks Reagan permitted to be heavier. nt

[Captain Hilts]

4. Yeah, where's the logic in that?

Hop in - let's roll!

[underpants]

8. $300,000 per litre in cost

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller

He cited Francois de Chardenedes' view that petroleum, from the standpoint of its replacement cost out of our current energy "budget", essentially the incoming solar flux, had cost nature "over a million dollars" per U.S. gallon (US$300,000 per litre) to produce. From this point of view its use as a transportation fuel by people commuting to work represents a huge net loss compared to their earnings.<18>

[tinrobot]

10. Streamlining and light weight were the reason it got good MPGs

One of the big problems of the Dymaxion was that it was actually very light and that lead to instability on the road. The center of gravity was very high and the streamlined design, while good for cutting through the air, provided no downforce to keep the car on the road.

The fact that it was 20 feet long and impossible to park was another downfall.

We can certainly learn from the Dymaxion. Vehicles have become very heavy, and boxy body styles do not help. Reducing the weight of vehicles is very important as are aerodynamics.

[eppur_se_muova]

13. No downforce? Fuller intended that the tail wheel would LIFT at top speed ...

so that the vehicle would travel on two wheels. Not something I'd want to drive on a busy highway!

[catnhatnh]

6. Complete Info here...

http://www.washedashore.com/projects/dymax/

including photos and construction information with extensive links to all things "Dymaxion"...

[underpants]

7. Cool thanks

I heard Colbert mention Fuller so I googled his name. I am going to get one of the bios at the library tomorrow.

Very interesting man.

[Dogmudgeon]

11. I met the guy. A high point of my life.

He was a mind-blower, a giant of a man, a universe of pure, compressed energy in a frail, sickly stick figure who toughed it out well into his 90s.

Behind his absurdly-refracting glasses, he was DaVinci, he was Hiram, he was Hermes Trismegistos.

R. Buckminster Fuller. When visiting Valhalla, http://www.bfi.org/">ask for him by name.

--p!

[Vodid]

9. Mileage/Practicality

If I remember correctly, it was over 30mpg fuel efficiancy, and it carried many passengers. Also, the rear wheel could pivot...this allowed the car to be parked in a space just nine inches larger than the length of the car. Compare this car with other cars from the 1930's, and it'll be clear how futuristic this design was at the time (hint: all the other cars looked more-or-less like model T's). Buckminster Fuller was a visionary.

[diane in sf]

12. Buskminster Fuller is one of my heroes. He said as of the 1970s that we had sufficently

developed technology to support everyone on the planet without destroying the earth in the process and enslaving other humans because we could use the principles of nature and do more and more with less and less physical material. Part of this was that most machinery was turned over roughly every 20 years and we could reuse the materials in building the next generation of machinery again using less and less physical material and more embedded information. Microcircuitry and batteries are two really good examples of these trends--though we could do a much better job of making all the components of both recyclable.

[eppur_se_muova]

14. "disappeared after one crashed, killing the driver " ... Fuller always claimed a coverup.

The car did not 'run off the road', it was driven off by another car. That car left the area before the police arrived. The driver turned out to be a local politician, who quashed the story. The driver of the Dymaxion Transport Unit would probably have survived, IF HE HAD WORN HIS SEAT BELT. Other cars did not have seat belts at the time; Fuller insisted on adding them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt#History