Article: Still No Flying Cars

Almost the instant the automobile was invented, engineers began dreaming up futuristic interpretations of the driving experience--and manufacturers began touting those visions as the promise of a bright tomorrow. "Sometime in the future, the completely streamlined torpedo car may come into use," predicted Streamlines, a 1936 film from Chevrolet. "Elevated highways, wide and level, may let us go 120 miles an hour." A 1940 General Motors film, To New Horizons, envisaged a safe distance between cars "maintained by automatic radio control," and "the elimination of congestion and the elimination of interference from all the various converging motorways." Ford's Styling and the Experimental ...

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